NEW YORK - Auburn natice Cardinal Avery Dulles, a convert to Roman Catholicism who was the first U.S. theologian named a cardinal, died Friday. He was 90.

Dulles, a Jesuit and son of a U.S. Secretary of State, died in an infirmary at Fordham University, where he was a professor for two decades, according to the Rev. Jim Martin of America, a Jesuit magazine that regularly published Dulles' articles.

Pope John Paul II appointed Dulles in 2001 to the College of Cardinals, making him the first American Jesuit and the first U.S. theologian outside of a diocese to be named a cardinal. He was considered the dean of American Catholic theologians.

Dulles came from a family of American statesmen.

The grandson of a Presbyterian minister, he was the son of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who served under President Dwight Eisenhower. The cardinal's uncle was Allen Dulles, who led the Central Intelligence Agency, also in the Eisenhower administration.

Born in Auburn, Avery Robert Dulles was a graduate of Harvard College and joined the Jesuits after he was discharged from the Navy in 1946. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1956, later earning a doctorate in sacred theology from Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

He served for 14 years as a professor at The Catholic University in America, becoming an internationally known lecturer, then joined the Fordham faculty in 1988 in New York.

The author of more than 20 books, Dulles specialized in ecclesiology, studying the nature and mission of the church in the world. One of his best known works was "Models of the Church."

Still, he wrote widely on many topics, from Jesus to sacraments to Scripture, said Thomas Groome, a Boston College professor of theology and a former student of Dulles.

"He was the total Catholic theologian," Groome said.

Dulles was considered a progressive thinker around the time of the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s-era meetings that enacted modernizing reforms in the church. However, in his later years, he was viewed more as a defender of Catholic orthodoxy.

Still, he spoke against division within the church.

"He always took views other than his own very seriously and he tried to incorporate what he found good in divergent views," said Terrence W. Tilley, a Fordham theologian who knew Dulles. "Not everybody is quite so charitable."

He remained active even into his older years, attending meetings of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and rising to correct the prelates if he felt they had misspoken. After the clergy sex abuse crisis erupted in 2001, he said the church's decision to bar all guilty priests from public church work went too far and violated priests' due process rights.

Among Dulles' books are "A Testimonial to Grace," the story of his conversion. He said he was drawn to Catholicism through his studies of philosophy, the medieval church and the Protestant Reformation.

"I found my sympathies were always on the Catholic side and felt that was where I belonged," Dulles told America in a 2001 interview.

He said "it came as something of a shock" to his family when he wrote them to say he planned to convert. His father said he didn't believe it was the right decision, but that he was an adult and could make his own choices.

Dulles had contracted polio as a young man and suffered from post-polio syndrome, which can cause muscle weakness and difficulty breathing. He eventually had to use a wheelchair and couldn't speak for long periods.

When Pope Benedict XVI visited the U.S. last April, he made time for a private meeting with the cardinal in New York, underscoring Dulles' importance to the church. In April, a colleague at Fordham delivered the last lecture that Dulles wrote.

"The most important thing about my career, and many of yours," he told the students, "is the discovery of the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field -- the Lord Jesus himself."