Cardinal O'Connor may have been a terrible administrator, from a financial point of view, and he was not even good at dealing with the clergy, because he was too trusting. But he was sure good at standing up to pressure from the state, and truly excellent on pro-life things.
I moved just about the time Egan came in, but the thing that stuns me, when I read the New York press, is how silent he is. Cdl O'Connor was very high profile, and whenever anything in the city happened, people wanted to know what O'Connor thought about it. Not Egan, unfortunately. I guess that's largely a matter of personal style, and perhaps if Egan is really pressured, he'll have to take a stand. I think he retires shortly, although after that stupid letter that some NY priests wrote, criticizing him, the Vatican will probably leave him there longer just to teach the NYC clergy a lesson.
Yes, I remember that bit about the Catholic foster homes. Cardinal O'Connor was an Irishman of the old school, and nobody messed around with him. I think his toughness in that instance really set the liberals back in their encroachment campaign for years. No doubt they planned to go after the hospitals next, and so forth. But if the Church shut down all those charitable institutions in the city, it would have been a severe blow to their budget.
Also, incidentally, it would have gotten the Church off the hook of providing charities to populations that in many areas are no longer Catholic like they used to be.
I once met Cardinal Cushing of Boston--gave him a ride in my car from his Chancery to Harvard to meet with the the Catholic Club and the Chaplain to discuss getting his permission to open a new Catholic Center, after Fr. Feeney made off with the old one. Naturally he was somewhat fearful it might happen again.
He was a real Irishman, too.