CONNECTICUT
Connecticut Magazine
by Tom Connor
Editor’s note: As the first trial in the Hartford Catholic priest sex abuse scandal is underway (as reported in the Hartford Courant) and new testimony comes to light in how the Hartford archdiocese handled the issue, writer Tom Connor was able to interview former Bridgeport bishop and New York City cardinal Edward Egan, who held a high position within the Catholic church when the abuses were alleged to have happened in the Bridgeport dioceses.
Ten years ago this spring, the sexual abuse crisis involving hundreds of Roman Catholic priests and thousands of young victims broke nationally in the media, engulfing dioceses from Boston to Los Angeles but also the Diocese of Bridgeport, where 23 lawsuits against seven local priests were working their way through the courts.
Three years earlier, however, this magazine had reported on long-standing and widespread abuses in the diocese (“Gods and Monsters,” May 1999; link opens a .pdf of the original story), then under the leadership of Bishop Edward Egan. In that article, Egan was portrayed as a wily, coldly-calculating defender of the Church and abusive priests, more corporate lawyer than spiritual guardian. The article revealed that he had let accused priests continue to work in local parishes, authorized payments to victims in exchange for silence agreements, and lied about those payments during a deposition. At the time, he had refused to meet with this writer.
Edward Egan came to Bridgeport in 1988 with impressive credentials: doctorate summa cum laude in Canon Law from the Pontifical Gregorian University in the Vatican City, a judge of the Tribunal of the Sacred Roman Rota, co-chancellor of the Chicago archdiocese where he worked with Dr. Martin Luther King on the Civil Rights marches. And once in Bridgeport, he restored the diocese’s finances; opened schools, immigrant centers, a seminary and a residence for retired priests; and co-founded the Inner-City Foundation for Charity and Education.
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