Cardinal Edward Egan Dies At Age 82

Cardinal Edward Egan, a longtime foe of LGBT rights and the former Archbishop of New York, has died at the age of 82.

Egan was pronounced dead at NYU Langone Medical Center at 2:20 p.m. after going into cardiac arrest, Archdiocese officials say. Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the Archdiocese, told NBC 4 New York Egan seemed fine when he was eating lunch earlier Thursday and showed no signs of illness. He died a short time later. Zwilling said the Archdiocese was in shock. Egan was born on April 2, 1932, in Oak Park, Illinois. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago on Dec. 15, 1957. Egan was consecrated a bishop in 1985. For the next three years, he served as Auxiliary Bishop and Vicar for Education of the Archdiocese of New York. In 1988, he was appointed the Bishop of the Diocese of Bridgeport by Pope John Paul II. He was appointed Archbishop of New York in 2000 and made a cardinal in 2001.

Egan is perhaps best remembered for his 2012 retraction of the apology he made in 2002 for sexual abuses that took place under his watch while he was the Bishop of Bridgeport. The New York Times reported on the retraction:

In a interview with Connecticut Magazine published on the magazine’s web site last week, a surprisingly frank Cardinal Egan said of the apology, “I never should have said that,” and added, “I don’t think we did anything wrong.” He said many more things in the interview, some of them seemingly at odds with the facts. He repeatedly denied that any sex abuse had occurred on his watch in Bridgeport. He said that even now, the church in Connecticut had no obligation to report sexual abuse accusations to the authorities. (A law on the books since the 1970s says otherwise.) And he described the Bridgeport diocese’s handling of sex-abuse cases as “incredibly good.” All of which has Cardinal Egan, now 79 and living in Manhattan, drawing fire from advocates who say he has reopened old wounds.

The Diocese of Bridgeport ended up paying an estimated $15M to the sexual abuse victims.

Cardinal Edward Egan Withdraws Apology For Priest Molestation Scandals

Cardinal Edward Egan has withdrawn his apology for the child molestation scandals that were exposed when he was the Archbishop of New York. That 2002 letter of apology was read to all of the congregations under his control.

A decade after that letter, the former archbishop of New York, and former bishop of Bridgeport, now describes the handling of the priest-abuse crisis under his watch as “incredibly good.” He said of the letter, "I never should have said that,” and added, “I don’t think we did anything wrong.” “I never had one of these sex abuse cases.” he said, before adding pompously, “If you have another bishop in the United States who has the record I have, I’d be happy to know who he is.”

He also claimed that the Church had no obligation to report abuse to the civil authorities. These are lies, strutting around with pride. The Church is required to report abuse, according to laws on the books since the 1970s. Bishop Egan ran a diocese that was notoriously dangerous for children. Contrary to his claim, during his twelve-year enthronement at Bridgeport, Egan repeatedly failed to investigate priests where there were obvious signs of abuse, according to The Hartford Courant. His diocese had to settle the cases and awarded victims some $12-15 million in damages.

In 2009 Egan was succeeded by Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who himself is about to be elevated to Cardinal. Like Dolan, he is a vocal opponent of LGBT rights.

"A Perverse Accomplishment"

In an editorial about their October court victory in forcing the Catholic Church to turn over secret documents about the child molestation cover-up scandal, yesterday the New York Times noted the starkly differing reactions to such abuses by former New York Archbishop Edward Egan (pictured) and Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.

Referring to the Rev. Raymond Pcolka, whom 12 former parishioners accused of abuses involving oral and anal sex and beatings, Bishop Egan said: “I am not aware of those things. I am aware of the claims of those things, the allegations of those things. I am aware that there are a number of people who know one another, some are related to one another, have the same lawyers and so forth.”

Absent in those pages is a sense of understanding of the true scope of the tragedy. Compare Bishop Egan’s words with those of the archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, who, after the release of a recent report detailing years of abuse and cover-ups in Ireland, said: “The sexual abuse of a child is and always was a crime in civil law; it is and always was a crime in canon law; it is and always was grievously sinful. One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the report is that while church leaders — bishops and religious superiors — failed, almost every parent who came to the diocese to report abuse clearly understood the awfulness of what was involved.”

Bishop Egan, with institutional pride, looks at the relatively low rate of proven abuse cases as a sort of perverse accomplishment. “It’s marvelous,” he said, “when you think of the hundreds and hundreds of priests and how very few have even been accused, and how very few have even come close to having anyone prove anything.”

(Via - Father Tony)