Egan's Death Elicits Mixed Memories
By Michael P. Mayko
For a dozen years, he served as the face of 460,000 Fairfield County Catholics and brought their presence to Rome. Cardinal Edward Egan strived to bring more men into the priesthood by establishing the St. John Fisher pre-seminary residence in Trumbull and later Stamford, took control of diminishing diocesan finances by raising $40 million through the Faith in the Future campaign, created the Catherine Dennis Keefe Queen of the Clergy Retired Priests' residence in Stamford and built St. Catherine Academy, the only private school for special needs children in the state. He reorganized and expanded Catholic Charities and created outreach programs such as soup kitchens, clinics and housing for AIDS patients. He opened Malta House, a home for pregnant mothers and reorganized the area's Catholic School system. But his image was forever bruised by his failure to halt a growing scandal of pedophile priests who invaded the Diocese of Bridgeport, which includes Stamford, Greenwich and Danbury. On Thursday, Egan, who served as the third bishop of Bridgeport's Catholic Diocese, died of a heart attack in New York City. He was 82. "May he rest in peace," said John Marshall Lee, a leader in the Bridgeport chapter of Voice of the Faithful, a lay organization formed in 2002 to address sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. "He was unable to reconcile the tension of his political vision of being a church man with that of being one of the people of God," Lee said. Egan, as the leader of the Greater Bridgeport Catholic Diocese from 1988-2000, was in a position to halt the pedophile priest scandal that cost the diocese nearly $40 million in damages, Lee said. "He missed that opportunity," Lee said. And Bridgeport's Christopher Caruso, a former state representative, mayoral candidate and staunch Catholic, said there will always be a scar on Egan's legacy. "No one can ever question his love for the Church, his defense of the Church," said Caruso, who attended Egan's installation as archbishop of New York in 2000. "But his not being more aggressive in acknowledging and correcting the problem ... was inexcusable." `Larger than life' Egan was born on April 2, 1932 in Oak Park, Ill., the third of four children. He was ordained as a priest in 1957. However, he spent many years studying in Rome, and in 1971 was named an auditor of the Sacred Roman Rota by Pope Paul VI. On Dec. 14, 1988, he was installed as bishop in the Bridgeport Diocese. Thomas McCarthy, currently president of the Bridgeport City Council, served as an altar boy during the installation at Sacred Heart University. McCarthy's job that day was to serve Cardinal John O'Connor, then the archbishop of New York, carrying his mitre -- the bishop's hat -- and crozier. "That was a special day for me," recalled McCarthy. "Just being assigned to Cardinal O'Connor -- he was someone who was larger than life." Just a month ago, McCarthy saw Egan during the 50th anniversary of Monsignor William Sheyd's ordination into the priesthood, at St. Aloysius Church in New Canaan. "Msgr. Sheyd served as the vicar under Cardinal Egan when he was the bishop of Bridgeport," McCarthy said. McCarthy said Egan was very sharp, speaking off the cuff and lacing his comments with humor. But he did notice Egan had trouble walking. McCarthy said Egan's ties to Rome were helpful to the Bridgeport Diocese. "He put the Bridgeport Diocese on the global map," the City Council president said. "He had a lot of influence with Rome. And that influence affected the lives of Catholics in Bridgeport. None more so than Mary Fabrizi, the late grandmother of John Fabrizi, a former Bridgeport mayor. "He gave my grandmother a set of prayer beads that had been blessed by the Pope," Fabrizi recalled. "She cherished those beads and carried them with her." When she died, the beads were buried with her, Fabrizi said. Inspiring loyalty Egan loved Bridgeport, Fabrizi said. "He cared about the city and its parishes. He portrayed the typical Catholic priest," the former mayor said. Fabrizi said Egan never forgot Bridgeport and his flock. "Whenever my wife and I attended Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, he came over and welcomed us," Fabrizi said. When the now closed Holy Rosary Church had its annual festival, Caruso said, Egan would attend. "He'd play the piano and sing Italian songs with the parishioners," Caruso said. "The people loved it. Here was a bishop able to act like a parish priest." Caruso said he always had access to Egan. "Whenever he saw me we would talk," said the former longtime state legislator. "But he never preached to me about issues in the Legislature. That's something I always appreciated." Egan invited Caruso to his installation as Cardinal and archbishop of New York. The politician brought his former first-grade teacher, Sister Rose Curtin, of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. "When he left Bridgeport for New York, I figured I'd never hear from him again," Caruso said. "But he invited me to be there and bring a guest. He came out from the Sacristy and walked over to Sister Rose and myself and talked to us." The pair later went to the reception at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. "This was a woman who took a vow of poverty," Caruso said. "Here she was in this beautiful hotel, talking to people like Steve Forbes ... it was overwhelming for her and so wonderful for her to be there." Neither of Egan's successors, Bishop William Lori, now the archbishop of Baltimore, nor current Bridgeport Diocese Bishop Frank Caggiano, who is in Rome, could be reached for comment Thursday. A tainted legacy But others believe that occurred in Bridgeport. The mention of his name still provokes anger among dozens of people who claim their youth was stolen by unpunished pedophile priests. "Egan was among the most callous, reckless and deceitful priests ever," said David Clohessy, founder of the national Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "We hope his passing brings some comfort to the many adults who were abused as children because of his self-serving secrecy and his relentless protection of predator priests." Church documents obtained by the Connecticut Post over a period of more than 10 years indicate Egan was aware of specific allegations of abuse by identified priests when he became bishop in 1988. However, he failed to report them to authorities, instead choosing to cover them up and move the abusers to other area parishes. One of those priests was the Rev. Martin Federici, who Egan reassigned in 1989 to the former Cathedral High School in Bridgeport after he had been accused of abusing several children while a parish priest. After complaints were made that Federici abused a student at the high school, he was again transferred to another post. The first lawsuit was filed in 1993 accusing the Rev. Raymond Pcolka of sexually abusing two children in the early 1980s. The diocese denied they ever received a complaint regarding the abuse. But court documents later disclosed that the diocese began negotiations in 1989 with a lawyer representing many of the 16 victims abused by Pcolka in area parishes. The closest Egan ever came to making an apology occurred in an April 2002 letter to parishioners read in New York City's St. Patrick's Cathedral. "It is clear today we have a much better understanding of this problem," Egan wrote. "If in hindsight we also discover that mistakes may have been made as regards to prompt removal of priests and assistance to victims, I am deeply sorry." Staff Writer Daniel Tepfer and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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