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It is no small accident that I write this on the morning of the day the Funeral Mass for Edward Cardinal Egan will be offered in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. A general theme has been in my mind since late last week, but I’m glad I waited because it gave me an opportunity to hear what Bishop Dennis Sullivan said in his evocative and elegantly crafted homily at the Vigil Mass in the cathedral last night. A bit more on that a little later.
It’s hard to sum up a man like Cardinal Egan in 800 words, the approximate length of this column. Many of you readers know the basics of his life story, which is detailed in very good order in Mary Ann Poust’s story beginning on Page 2 and in the timeline presented on Page 9.
Suffice it to say, Cardinal Egan was a man of accomplishment in every phase of his life—as a student, a seminarian, a young priest, a canon lawyer and judge, an auxiliary bishop, and as Bishop of Bridgeport, Conn., and Archbishop of New York and then, finally, as Archbishop Emeritus.
Journalists always try to move beyond the recitation of facts and figures, to capture the essence of the person, by emphasizing the how and why of his or her story. Throughout the years, I tried at least a few times to subtly encourage Cardinal Egan to share more of that part of his story, without too much success.
There were some moments like when he took up my request to write about the priesthood on the occasion of his golden jubilee of priesthood in 2007. He agreed, he wrote, after some hesitation, “since the priesthood is something very precious and personal for me.”
“I would not want to diminish it with uncareful or, worse yet, self-serving words.” True to form, the cardinal concluded that reflection “with the fervent hope that the People of God of the Archdiocese join me in begging the Savior for a growth in vocations in our midst.”
Another time, I remember asking him which saint or Church figure had the biggest impact on his life. His response was to “read about Paul.” He went on from there a bit, but it was a pretty simple and straightforward invitation.
Of course, I wasn’t the only person to whom he offered that introduction. And he didn’t just talk about St. Paul. He wrote about him, a lot, including a fair number of times in Catholic New York. (Go to cny.org, where you can find all of Cardinal Egan’s CNY columns.)
Several of those columns came during the Pauline Year initiated by Pope Benedict XVI, which coincided roughly with Cardinal Egan’s last year as Archbishop of New York.
I particularly liked one published on Feb. 12, 2009, about a week and a half before Pope Benedict accepted his resignation. The cardinal pulls back the curtain a bit in that piece.
In one scene, he speaks of encountering a young woman in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament at St. Peter’s Basilica who hands him a multilingual brochure of brief passages from the Epistles of St. Paul, which the cardinal proceeded to read over and over. She would soon return to a group of five friends on the other side of the chapel.
In the column, he continues by quoting Paul’s account of the Last Supper and then cites two of the statements of the “Apostle of the Gentiles” that “leave no doubt whatsoever about his firm belief that the Eucharist is the body and blood of the Son of God made Man.”
Near the end, he speaks of walking outside the basilica and then dashing for protection from a cloudburst under the roof that covers the colonnade. He encountered a group of young men, nine to be precise, from Northern Italy and proceeded to strike up a conversation. They had been distributing brochures in support of the Pauline Year on their stops along the way from home, with Rome the culmination of their journey.
The cardinal soon invited the group to recite the first passage from the brochure. As they did, some of the young women from the chapel appeared in their midst. Together, the young men and women and New York’s Cardinal again read the passage, “at the top of our voices.”
It is a lovely, beautiful image that speaks louder than any words I could write. It is all there in the details of that column. As Bishop Sullivan said on Monday evening, Cardinal Egan was a man of details.
Incidentally, you’ll notice the headline of this column is in quotes. It is the same as the one from which the material above was taken.
And, I can say firsthand that the cardinal was right about St. Paul. A couple years ago, I took him up on the invitation and studied all of his writings along with a friend. Don’t take my word for it, though. Read them for yourself.
