Cardinal Edward Egan

Back in June 2007, Rudy Giuliani addressed the question of whether he, as a pro-choice Catholic politician, was fit to receive communion by saying, "Issues like that for me are between me and my confessor. I'm a Catholic and that's the way I resolve those issues, personally and privately."

Today, Cardinal Edward Egan of New York, Giuliani's own bishop, essentially said that the former mayor, with his "well-known support" for abortion rights, forfeited his right to call the matter private by publicly accepting Holy Communion during a papal Mass this month.

Cardinal Egan’s scolding, in which he said he "deeply regrets" Giuliani's decision, is a result of what the prelate suggested was a violation of "an understanding" with the former candidate for the Republican nomination and the church, which Egan said teaches "that abortion is a grave offense against the will of God."  read more »

Edward Cardinal Egan snapped at reporters covering a protest outside the Capuchin monastery on West 31st Street yesterday afternoon, telling them they shouldn't be covering protesters who buttonholed him after a mass he said there.

 

30 or 40 protesters, angered at the closing of Our Lady Queen of Angels church on East 113th Street, met the Cardinal outside the monastery Sunday, chanting and holding signs. The cardinal stopped to tell reporters: "Why don't you just ignore them? Grow up. We've had enough of this."

He was then driven away without addressing the protesters.

The church was closed in February as part of the Cardinal's unpopular program of closing and consolidating neighborhood parishes around the city to rescue the Church's ailing bottom line. The Archdiocese of New York has argued that there are other parishes nearby, and that O.L.Q.A. served too few parishioners to remain open. Neighborhood activists have claimed the church was closed because the neighborhood has too little influence with the Archdiocese.

• The New York Post

A church closing turns ugly as valuables are carted off and a fresco is covered.  read more »

By this Monday, on the occasion of his 75th birthday, Cardinal Edward Michael Egan, Archbishop of Ne  read more »

Yesterday's unusual reply by Cardinal Edward Egan to a critical and anonymous letter about him circulating in New York's archdiocese would have once sent major ripples across the city's political landscape. That it hasn't is a measure of the diminished influence of the Catholic hierarchy in public life here, a fact that critics of the cardinal say has less to do with any major cultural shifts in the church than with the man at the helm. (This month's dissent was foreshadowed in the Observer last year by the Rev. John Duffell, a Roman Catholic priest at the Church of the Ascension on the West Side, who told me "The archbishop has been the religious leader in New York for a very long time. I wonder if the cardinal really appreciates the value and importance of that position," He added that the role of the religious community is to make room for a moral dimension in the public debate. "In my opinion, that role has been somewhat diminished in recent years.") Under Egan's predecessor, Cardinal John O'Connor, the archbishop of New York was considered one of the most high-profile positions in the city. While O'Connor had no role, of course, in dictating city policy, his voice was often sought after and listened to by mayors and other powerbrokers. Such extraordinary dissent from within the church, with charges that Egan overlooked "spiritual needs and concerns" of New York's clergy and Catholics, would have been startling to say the least under O'Connor. The accusation that Egan showed "unnatural fear of the media" would have been risible. O'Connor never met a camera he didn't like.

It is thus a testament to the merit of the charges, which were apparently written by priests and then posted on the Catholic news blog Whispers in the Loggia, that the complaints hardly registered outside the cardinal's Madison Ave residence.

There is a wide perception in the New York, and American, church that Egan is less attuned to his local archdiocese than he is with the inner workings of the Vatican. (That he left New York days after the Sept 11th attacks for a conference in Rome has been a lasting blemish on his record.) This month's letter, serious enough to hasten an official dismissal by Egan and a show of strength from his supporters, threatens to be another embarrassment as the cardinal approaches his 75th birthday, when he is required by church law to offer to the pope his resignation as archbishop.

His quick response (apparently reminding priests that he was a frequent visitor to hospitals, prisons and troubled parishes) could have less to do with defending his record in New York than with securing his reputation in Rome. Many priests in New York agree, under their breath, with church watchers in the Vatican that Egan really prefers Rome, where he served as a judge on the Sacred Roman Rota, a Vatican Court, for 14 years after teaching theology at the Pontifical North American College in Vatican City.

By rallying supporters and refusing to accept the criticism, Egan perhaps adds to his standing in the Vatican as an effective administrator with proven cost-cutting skills. It may not help his popularity quite as much, however, here in New York.

--Jason Horowitz

As tourists packed the pews, Cardinal Edward Michael Egan stood under the vaulted ceiling of St.  read more »

Poped out as we are, we have some sympathy for Mike cancelling his skit at the Inner Circle in deference to the pontiff's death. Somebody was bound to attack him over it.

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