Cardinal Edward M. Egan yesterday defended his handling of priest sexual abuse cases while he was bishop of Bridgeport and said his leadership of the New York archdiocese during the past seven months of crisis was not getting the credit it deserved.
"I think we handled the matters properly," Cardinal Egan said. "I think we're handling them properly now."
In his first extensive interview since the sexual abuse scandal began enveloping the Roman Catholic Church nationwide, the cardinal described the past year as the most difficult of his life. He said Sept. 11, the scandal and other crises, including a school strike, forced him to delay his major initiatives for the archdiocese of 2.4 million Catholics. They include plans to reach out to immigrant groups and possibly to close parishes.
He disclosed, however, that he has reached one major goal: erasing a more than $20 million operating deficit, which he inherited two years ago. And he promised eventually to eliminate the archdiocese's long-term debt.
In a 90-minute interview in his high-rise office at the New York Catholic Center, with the Chrysler Building gleaming in the distance, the cardinal made it clear that he was keenly aware of criticism among both the clergy and lay Catholics that he has failed to serve his flock as a pastor. He obliquely faulted the news media and blamed people disgruntled by his budget and personnel cuts. He portrayed himself several times as relying heavily on advisers in making legal and financial decisions. [Excerpts, Page B4.]
Cardinal Egan, who is 70, also rejected any notion that as the leader of the Archdiocese of New York — to many the most prominent Roman Catholic pulpit in the nation — he served as a national church leader. "I see myself as a servant of the people of God of the Archdiocese of New York," he said, with one overriding concern: its 414 parishes.
He also displayed his deep knowledge of classical music, his fluency in Latin and Italian and his love for and intimacy with Rome, a city where he lived for many years. He spoke with ease on those subjects, but grew serious, almost guarded, in discussing the affairs of the archdiocese. He said he could not speak freely regarding the sex abuse scandal because court cases were pending in Bridgeport and New York.
Some advocates for victims of sex abuse have portrayed the cardinal as being too slow to remove priests accused of molesting minors while he served as bishop of Bridgeport, a position he held from 1988 to 2000.
Cardinal Egan yesterday repeated his past assertions that he relied on the expert advice of psychiatrists in allowing some accused priests to keep working in Bridgeport — a practice that was common across the country. But that measure, he said, has changed. "Right now, I have less and less confidence in depending upon the medical and psychiatric community," he said. "It's too dangerous, it seems to me, to do anything now but to play always on the side of safety," he said, and suspend priests more promptly.
In April, the cardinal said he was sorry "if in hindsight we also discover that mistakes may have been made" regarding the removal of priests and assisting victims. Yesterday, when asked if he had made any mistakes, he answered, "I think that we did this properly, as it was understood at that time, and I'm happy with what we did."
As archbishop of New York since 2000, the cardinal has faced a different set of challenges. Some priests have felt angry about what they see as harsh treatment of accused fellow clerics, while victims and their advocates are angry at him for not acting decisively enough.
At the same time, some Catholics portray him as an absentee shepherd during the church's most deeply troubled time in generations. To these faithful, he is an aloof archbishop who has failed to bring a sense of healing and trust.
"In two years, he has not been much of an archbishop for New York, that is, for the life of the city," said the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things, a conservative journal, and one of more than a dozen people interviewed who expressed similar feelings. "He's a good, faithful man. I think he's just missed opportunity after opportunity to be what a bishop should be. That is, a teacher."
John M. Conroy, a retired school principal active in his parish of Church of the Holy Family in New Rochelle, said the bishop was well-suited to solving financial problems. "But right now those are not the important problems," he said. "This guy is so distant, and not the kind of person who is going to be helpful in these troubled times."
Except for two homilies around Easter week, the cardinal has mainly communicated to the archdiocese at large through letters read in churches, statements issued to the press and a column in Catholic New York, the diocesan newspaper. He has spoken to some degree about the scandal during Sunday parish visits. He has rarely spoken to reporters.
Bishops elsewhere have taken a different approach, meeting with victims and establishing a special ministry for them, holding outdoor healing ceremonies or engaging in media campaigns. Yesterday, the cardinal distanced himself from such bishops. "I don't think that's the way to do it," he said. "I think we've handled it in a very serious way," adding, "Everybody has a different way of dealing with things."
He suggested that criticism of him as being aloof was exaggerated. "We're getting through more than some people might have suspected," he said. He has been dogged by such criticism since succeeding Cardinal John J. O'Connor, whom some regard as more charismatic. But Cardinal Egan said it was common for a bishop who was dealing with administrative problems to be faulted for lacking the pastoral touch.
For instance, in disclosing yesterday that he was considering taking steps to reduce the archdiocese's long-term debt, he said: "As soon as you publish this, somebody's going to say, `See, he's not a pastor of souls at all, he's only interested in other things.' But we have to put our house in order, and we're putting our house in order."