By FARAH PRINCE
With Tameeka Castillo & Elizabeth Coluccio
In a celebration of his life and love of the church, Cardinal Edward M. Egan was laid to rest at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Tuesday.
His funeral was packed with mourners paying their respects to the cardinal who died of cardiac arrest on Thursday at age 82.
The start of the music-filled ceremony was marked by the processional, which included a long line of clergymen and laymen making their way through the streets of midtown Manhattan as drummers and bagpipers from New York’s police and fire departments played.
The processional continued into the cathedral’s main aisle, as a choir sang in the balcony and later in the program, Metropolitan Opera soloist Renee Fleming performed “Ave Maria”.
The ceremony was a celebration, rather than the mourning of Cardinal Egan’s life, as many of the clergymen entered the already filled church with soft smiles. It included personal eulogies from Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Egan’s great-nephew Brian.
Dozens of bishops and priests thronged the altar and the pews were family, friends, parishioners and, of course, politicians including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio and former mayors Michael Bloomberg, Rudy Giuliani and David Dinkins.
“We ask for mercy,” Cardinal Dolan, the sitting archbishop of New York implored at the beginning of the ceremony. “for his noble priestly soul”
Dolan noted that Egan disliked eulogies. He recounted how at his own mother’s funeral, the then Bishop Egan skipped the eulogy entirely.
“My mother hated eulogies and so does her son,” Dolan quoted Egan saying at the time to his young niece.
“A eulogy would be easy and natural,” said Dolan. “But he’d have none of it.”
Instead, Cardinal Dolan spoke at length on Cardinal Egan’s love and devotion to the church, which according to Egan’s family, was his “real family.”
Cardinal Egan was born in Oak Park, Illinois and was consecrated as a bishop in 1985. He served as bishop of Bridgeport, Connecticut for 12 years before becoming the ninth archbishop of New York in 2000. He retired in 2009 becoming the first archbishop in the Archdiocese of New York’s 200-year history, to retire.
Egan’s great-nephew, Brian, recalled Egan’s wishes to stay in New York after his retirement.
“New York can’t be beat,” Egan said with a smile. “No way, it can’t be beat.”
Colin Lane, a parishioner who attended the funeral said that he was a “great inspiration for all the people of New York” and his lost was “a bit like losing your voice.”
Though he wasn’t as prominent as his predecessor, Cardinal John O’Connor, Cardinal Egan eliminated a multi-million-dollar debt in the New York Church finances and was loved by those who knew him well.
“I knew him from the past, when I was working around here [St. Patrick’s Cathedral],” said Angelina Alston, a mourner outside the church.
She added. “I had to see him one more time.”
Cardinal Egan was laid to rest in the crypt beneath the high altar at St. Patrick’s, where all previous New York archbishops are entombed.
In his final words, Cardinal Dolan thanked those in attendance and those who mourned the lost of his fellow Cardinal.
“Cardinal Egan liked things well done, especially the church liturgy,” Dolan said. “You didn’t let him down today.”
according to former Governor George Pataki, made all New Yorkers during 9/11 “stronger and better because of his presence.”
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