Quote of the Day (Michael Daly, on Edward Cardinal Egan)

“Archbishop Timothy Dolan sounds pretty good after nine years of Edward Cardinal Egan….Egan seems to have been pretty good at watching the diocesan pocketbook, but he was not much good at uplifting the heart.”—Michael Daly, “Change Welcome in Uncertain Time,” The New York Daily News, Feb. 24, 2009

I would go further than Daly in his gently critical summary of the tenure of Cardinal Egan in New York: He was just the kind of pompous, imperious cleric that makes his priests bridle and congregants leave in droves.

Stemming the tide of red ink is the achievement that Egan’s defenders and even his critics acknowledge, but I think this is letting him off too easily. Throughout his ministry, Christ was not an accountant and neither, primarily, should be those who would follow his way.

Closing parishes and schools has been the easy way out for what Daly calls “an ecclesiastical CEO” like Egan and his counterparts in the American Church hierarchy. But the Roman Catholic Church is not a retail chain. It was instituted to uplift and save the fallen of this world.

If you want an idea of the path Egan could have chosen, look at the career of his 19th-century predecessor, Archbishop John Hughes. As much church chieftain as priest, Hughes was a man not easily crossed. Even his crucifix gave rise to a nickname for him: "Dagger John." But he left an imprint that still endures.

After seeing not only his criticisms of Protestant religious practices in supposedly nonsectarian public schools go unheeded, but also his request for tax dollars for the Church’s own schools, Hughes pushed for the creation of parochial schools outside the established educational system. From 1840 to 1870, the number of children in New York’s Catholic schools rose from 5,000 to 22,000.

Make no mistake: Hughes, like Egan, could brook no interference with his ecclesiastical priorities. But the difficulties he faced were far more daunting than Egan’s—not just financial problems, but also active threats to his flock in the form of virulent prejudice. Hughes thought outside the box and made a difference to the lives of millions for more than a century afterward through the parochial school system.

Was Egan ever so creative? Not really.

Oh, wait. I take that back. Yes, he was. Once. It occurred during his time as bishop of Bridgeport, when, during litigation springing from the sexual-abuse crisis, he came up with the novel theory that the Church had no legal liability because its priests were “independent contractors.”

I bet the priests he supervised in Bridgeport—and especially the ones he managed in the far larger jurisdiction of New York—had a real good laugh over that one. It might have been the last time in his career that he ever said anything funny, even if it was completely unintentional.