Cardinal Egan to Be Entombed in Crypt of St. Patrick's Cathedral; Details of Funeral Released

By Corky Siemaszko
New York Daily News
March 6, 2015

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/cardinal-egan-entombed-st-patrick-cathedral-article-1.2140136

Cardinal Egan, seen here in June 2000, died Thursday at age 82.

Edward Cardinal Egan will be spending eternity in good company.

The former archbishop of New York City will be entombed in the crypt at St. Patrick’s Cathedral with four of his predecessors and Msgr. Michael Lavelle, who served as Rector of St. Patrick’s Cathedral for 52 years.

Also resting there in the space beneath the high altar is Pierre Toussaint, a Haitian-born slave who became a New York philanthropist — and who is the only non-clergyman in the group.

The Archdiocese of New York released the funeral plans on Friday — a day after Egan, who led his flock from 2000 to 2009, died of cardiac arrest. He was 82.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan will formally receive his predecessor’s body at 10 a.m. Monday at the Fifth Ave. entrance to the cathedral and a private visitation for just his family will follow.

A visitor prays from a pew near a portrait of the late Cardinal Egan at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Friday.

At noon, the public will be allowed inside to say farewell to Egan until 6 p.m., when a vigil mass will be said.

The wake for Egan resumes at 7 a.m. Tuesday and will go on until 11 a.m.

The procession preceding Egan’s formal funeral Mass will kick off at 1:30 p.m. and the service itself — at which Dolan will be the chief celebrant and deliver the homily — is scheduled to start at 2 p.m.

When that is over, Egan will be carried to his final resting place.

His coffin will be parked near that of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who gained national fame in the 1940s and 1950s with his radio and TV sermons.

In lieu of flowers, Egan’s family asked that donations be made to The Inner-City Scholarship Fund or earmarked for the ongoing restoration of St. Pat's.

Egan was archbishop during 9/11 and he was lauded by former mayors Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg for helping the city recover — and for personally presiding over the funerals of dozens of cops and firefighters who were killed on that terrible days.

Contact: csiemaszko@nydailynews.com