New York, NY – Roman Catholic Cardinal Edward Egan, the former archbishop of New York, has died. He was 82.
The Archdiocese of New York says Egan died Thursday afternoon at a New York hospital. The cause of death was cardiac arrest.
Pope John Paul II had appointed Egan as leader of the archdiocese in 2000 to succeed the late Cardinal John O’Connor.
Egan was archbishop during the Sept. 11 terror attacks during which he anointed the dead at a lower Manhattan hospital and presided over many funerals for victims.
He was a scholar of church law and spoke Latin fluently. John Paul chose him to help with the massive job of reviewing a revised canon law code for the global church.
A native of Illinois, Egan retired as New York archbishop in 2009.
