Late former Catholic archbishop of New York to be eulogized....Cardinal Edward Egan

Former Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, Edward Egan, will be eulogized Tuesday from the pulpit where he once preached.

Cardinal Egan was a Vatican theological force, leading the New York Archdiocese for almost a decade.

As an archbishop during the September 11 terror attacks, Egan anointed the dead at a lower Manhattan hospital and presided over many funerals for victims - sometimes three a day.


His successor, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, will be the celebrant for the afternoon funeral at St. Patrick's Cathedral that follows a public viewing.

Participants listed on the Mass program include Metropolitan Opera soloists Renee Fleming and Matthew Polenzani. Fleming sang at Egan's 2000 installation.

82-yr-old Egan died March 5 after a heart attack.

At a viewing attended by thousands Monday, he lay in the vast stone cathedral where his rich, booming voice once rang out — his hands folded across his chest, a rosary interlaced in his fingers.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Egan distributed hundreds of rosaries for a city in mourning.

"9/11 happened on his watch," former New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Monday.

Reports say hours after the two planes struck the World Trade Center, the cardinal — in a simple black cassock — sat quietly at the edge of a loading dock leading to the emergency room of St. Vincent's Hospital, expecting victims fighting for their lives. But only those with minor injuries came; more than 2,700 others died.

In the days that followed, Egan performed funeral rites.

Over the years, he helped all sorts of residents.

Egan urged employers to pay workers more than the minimum wage and organized encounters between races in neighborhoods that experienced hostilities, said mourner Jose Pivar.

"He did a lot, a lot, because he believed they are all children of God," said Pivar, 48, a Mexican immigrant from the Bronx who helped Egan with outreach programs.

With the title of archbishop emeritus, Egan retired in 2009 after nine years of leading the archdiocese, which serves more than 2.6 million Catholics in about 400 parishes in parts of the city and its northern suburbs.

The cardinal, born in Oak Park, Illinois, was an authority on church law and fluent in Latin — one of just a few experts tapped by Pope John Paul II to help with the herculean job of revising the Code of Canon Law for the global church, while deftly navigating the maze of Vatican politics.

He later oversaw an unpopular, thorny overhaul of New York church finances, eliminating a multimillion-dollar debt.