Hundreds of mourners filled St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan Thursday to celebrate the life of Cardinal Avery Dulles, the Auburn native who was the first American to become a cardinal without first becoming a bishop.

A Mass of Christian burial held at the cathedral was the final of three services held to remember Dulles. Services also took place Tuesday and Wednesday at Fordham University, the Bronx school where Dulles had served as the Laurence J. McGinley professor of religion and society since 1988.

Dulles passed away Friday at the age of 90.

During Thursday's service, according to an account from Fordham, Dulles was remembered by New York Archbishop Edward Cardinal Egan for his accomplishments and his determination to overcome obstacles, such as the polio he contracted as a young man.

The effects of polio also affected his health later in life, Egan said, but even though doctors at one point told him he would never write again, Dulles “proved them monumentally wrong.

“In the life of our lamented cardinal, there was triumph of the most authentic sense,” Egan said. “You have the example of a triumphant life story, never matched, to my knowledge, by any other American Catholic.”

Dulles was born in Auburn in 1918 to Janet Pomeroy Avery and John Foster Dulles, who went on to serve as secretary of state under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He grew up in New York City but still maintained a connection to the region, though, through summer visits to Owasco Lake and correspondence with his grandmother.

During Thursday's service, the Rev. David S. Ciancimino, provincial of the New York Province of the Society of Jesus, called Dulles a “priest's priest” and a master theologian.

“Cardinal Dulles was all they said he was - theologian, mentor, counselor. He was, however, foremost, a man of the church,” he said. “To us Jesuits, he was also Avery, our brother - our older, wiser brother.”