Egan to New York, pledges
loyalty
By NCR STAFF
Edward Egan, a canon lawyer with a reputation as a strict Vatican
loyalist, will be the ninth archbishop of New York, succeeding Cardinal John
OConnor, who died May 3.
The appointment of Egan, 68, currently bishop of Bridgeport,
Conn., was announced May 11. The move had been widely expected since members of
Egans family told reporters that he had broken the news to them.
In a news conference, Egan thanked John Paul and pledged his
obedience and loyalty to the pope.
Media reports suggested that Egan was not OConnors
choice to step into New Yorks top job, and that John Paul, in order to
pick Egan, had rejected the terna, or list of three candidates, put
together by a committee of American bishops and submitted by the nuncio.
Egan will almost certainly be made a cardinal in the next
consistory, a gathering of cardinals during which the pope creates new members,
which is expected later this year.
A native of Chicago and former secretary to Cardinal John Cody,
Egan served from 1972 to 1985 as a judge on the Roman Rota, the churchs
central appellate court responsible primarily for annulment cases. He was the
youngest member of a six-person team who advised John Paul on final revisions
of the new Code of Canon Law in 1983.
In 1985, the pope made Egan an auxiliary bishop. In a break with
precedent, he assigned Egan not to his home archdiocese in Chicago but to New
York. OConnor said at the time that he did not know Egan, and the
selection put him in an awkward position since he had promised that his next
auxiliary would be a New Yorker. OConnor welcomed Egan, however, in
accord with the popes wishes.
In 1988 Egan became the bishop of Bridgeport, where he launched a
program of closings and mergers of parishes and schools, unpopular decisions
that OConnor had largely deferred in New York. He also raised more than
$43 million to support education programs, members of religious communities and
homes for retired clergy.
Egan has a reputation as an effective recruiter for the
priesthood. He has 30 men currently on the path to ordination, and Bridgeport
already ranks first among 34 dioceses in the Northeast in its ratio of priests
to the Catholic population.
The Bridgeport diocese has faced more than two-dozen lawsuits in
recent years concerning alleged pedophilia by priests, most dealing with
conduct that occurred before Egan became bishop. In response to one such claim,
Egan pioneered a novel theory to insulate the diocese from liability, arguing
that priests are self-employed.
Egan described himself as self-employed, noting that his paycheck
from the diocese does not withhold income tax -- meaning he is treated legally
not as an employee but as a contractor.
A jury in the case returned a $1 million verdict against the
diocese. It was later set aside on the basis of faulty instructions from the
judge concerning the statute of limitations and is expected to be tried
again.
Egan is known as a conservative on many issues, both within the
church and in secular political culture. In 1996, Egan endorsed the Catholic
Alliance, an affiliate of Pat Robertsons Christian Coalition. Egans
support came after the Catholic Alliance reorganized itself under an
all-Catholic board, signaling a degree of independence from its parent
organization.
In July 1997, Egan joined a handful of other American bishops,
including OConnor, Charles Chaput of Denver, John Keating of Arlington,
Va., and John Meyers of Peoria, Ill., in signing a statement lamenting the
decline of religion in public life circulated by Focus on the Family, another
conservative Christian group. It bore the signatures of Ralph Reed, former
director of the Christian Coalition, and Gary Bauer, a former Republican
presidential candidate favored by the religious right.
During a 1987 hearing on sex education in city schools in New
York, Egan blasted what he called a twisted approach favored by the
board of education, which allowed school-affiliated health clinics to write
prescriptions for contraceptives with parental consent.
Try decency, try chastity, try Western civilization,
he said, instead of waiting for AIDS to put an end to us all.
On ecclesial matters, Egan is likely to take a strict approach. In
1986, he delivered the keynote address at the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars,
a group formed as an alternative to organizations such as the Catholic
Theological Society of America, viewed by critics as too liberal. Egan told the
group that the post-Vatican II push for a distinctly American Catholic church
was abating, while interest in tradition was growing.
There is a lot that is beginning to go right -- and by
right, I mean correct, he joked.
In 1997, Egan ordered a retreat house in Bridgeport to cancel a
presentation by Salvatoran Fr. Robert Nugent and School Sister of Notre Dame
Jeannine Gramick for parents of gay and lesbian children. Egan said that since
the two were under Vatican investigation the retreat would be
inappropriate.
In 1999, Nugent and Gramick were banned from pastoral work with
homosexuals by Rome.
A May 10 article in The New York Times, citing a church
official who had been briefed on the selection process by OConnor, said
that last fall a committee of American bishops organized a search for
OConnors replacement. They consulted clergy and laity about issues
and candidates.
The three names submitted to John Paul through the papal nuncio,
according to the Times account, were Archbishop Justin Rigali of St.
Louis, Archbishop Edward OBrien of the military archdiocese, and Bishop
Henry Mansell of Buffalo. The Times indicated that Mansell had been
OConnors candidate.
In the end, however, John Paul went with Egan, a man he has
seemingly been grooming for leadership.
Sources told the Times that the Vatican had been ready to
name Egan in March, but as OConnors health went into rapid decline
the decision was made to hold off until after his death.
Egan is fluent in Latin, French and Italian, and is said to be an
accomplished pianist.
Wire services contributed to this report.
National Catholic Reporter, May 19,
2000
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