| |
| |
Monsignor John J. Egan (1916 - 2001) |
|
| |
|
|
| |
Remembering A Lifelong Crusader |
|
| |
The Egan Urban Center lost its
namesake and Chicago a tireless campaigner for social justice
with the death this past spring of Monsignor John J. Egan. His
unstinting efforts to enhance the life of the community and the
lives of those who create it earned him a national reputation
and continued undiminished right up until is passing at the age
of 84.
"He loved Chicago. He was like the mayor, he absolutely loved
Chicago," recalled Peggy Roach, Egan's longtime ally and
administrative aide, who has a long list of activist credentials
herself. He loved it for its vibrancy, for the friendliness of
its people. And while he knew "the problems are endless," Roach
added, he was convinced that "if people get together they can do
something." |
 |
|
| |
An ironclad work ethic, an affable nature and a knack for
tapping the right people for help equipped Jack Egan to
persevere through a lifetime of meaningful and sometimes lonely
campaigns.
"Whoever speaks at my funeral will not say I was a priest's
priest. I was lay person's priest," Egan said in An Alley
in Chicago, The Ministry of a City Priest, by Margery
Frisbie, a biography of Egan (Sheed & Ward 1991).
"I think he just had this wonderful drive," Roach said. "He just
kept striving. He was always there for the long haul." And Roach
was with him, both in Chicago and for the 13 years he spent at
Notre Dame University in Indiana. Since 1987, the two worked out
of DePaul's Office of Community Affairs where Egan was an
assistant to the president. "It was a team effort all along the
line," Roach said. "I thought we were a pretty good team."
Battles for better housing, for open housing, for interfaith and
interracial initiatives led him into local, national and Chicago
archdiocesan politics. The struggle for civil rights found him
in Selma, Alabama linking arms with the Rev. Ralph Abernarthy to
show his support for extending voting rights to blacks. When a
photo of him at the march landed on the front page of a Chicago
newspaper, religious leaders around the country were inspired to
coverage on Selma. He became the local church's most visible
promoter of integration.
When Egan died of cardiovascular disease on May 19, the Illinois
Department of Financial Institutions was in the process of
adopting rules he had promoted and helped inspire to regulate
high-interest payday loans. Within the Church, he long advocated
higher visibility for women. And just the month before his
death, he had circulated a plea for the church to ordain women
and married men.
A Lifetime of Learning
"I think the only thing I was good at was working," Egan
recalled in Frisbie's biography. "What I remember about my youth
is that I was working all the time." Frisbie recounted how Egan
peddled newspapers for 10 years in the ethnically diverse
Ravenswood neighborhood on the North Side, paying his way to
DePaul University where he started out to study business. His
decision in 1935 to leave DePaul after just one year and begin
training for the priesthood met stiff resistance from his
father, a bus driver from Ireland whose job had brought the
family from New York to Chicago when Jack was six years old.
"A lot of damned nonsense. Somebody has twisted your mind," Egan
remembered his father telling him. Caustic, authoritarian John
Egan didn't speak to his son for six months. Earlier when Egan
was in 8th grade, his father had refused to let him join the
Oblate of Mary order in Texas. Only after his father's funeral,
when Jack Egan had been a priest for eight years, did he learn
what lay behind that opposition. His father had trained for the
priesthood himself, with the Irish Christian Brothers in Canada.
He left before taking his vows and he didn't want to see his son
labeled a "spoiled priest," a man who trained for but never
realized the priesthood, according to Frisbie.
The austere environment and rigors of classes all in Latin at
St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein where he trained to
become a priest could have proved claustrophobic, but instead
the world opened up to Egan who joined the orbit surrounding
Reynold "Rynie" Hillenbrand. Hillenbrand was an intellectual
rector who had a powerful influence on many idealistic young
priests of that generation and at a time when Chicago led
Catholic Church in the United States. A cornerstone of
Hillenbrand's philosophy was the dominant role he envisioned for
laity in church affairs.
When Egan was ordained a priest on May 1, 1943 he made
"something close to a vow that two things would have precedence
in my life," Frisbie wrote. "I will try to work for the
enhancement of the lay role in the Church and, wisely or not, I
will never say no to anyone."
Egan's eagerness to fill the gaps in his own education and his
genius at identifying instructors emerged early. When he felt
inadequate counseling parishioners in his first assignment out
of the seminary at St. Justin Martyr Parish on the South Side,
he turned to the eminent therapist Carl Rogers at The University
of Chicago. Rogers taught him that people change only at their
own pace, from within, when they know that they are respected,
Frisbie recounted.
A sojourn through France to learn what priests there were
teaching about marriage brought him into discussions with
theologians who would lead the way in opening up and reforming
the Catholic Church through the Vatican II Ecumenical Council.
For three years, Egan spent his summer vacations in Rome so he
could listen in on the historic debates taking place there. From
Saul Alinsky, another close friend, he got a challenging course
in the nuts and bolts of community organizing.
But his high-profile career never obscured Egan's original vows.
He could butt heads with clergy and hierarchy within the Church
and even part ways with mentors, but he was able to adhere to
the boundaries his vocation imposed. "He was born to be a
priest. He loved being a priest, It was in his bones," Roach
said simply.
"He was a very humble man," said community organizer Robert
Squires. Egan recruited Squires in 1959 to work with Alinsky out
of a settlement house on the West Side and he later baptized
Squires' two daughters. "Egan was a charmer," he recalled. "The
man would come in, and the light would shine." He credits him
with making the corporate world aware of the need for social
justice. "He challenged the power structure to be fair" said
Squires. "He was ambitious to get things done, but not for
himself. He hated to see poverty - poverty and oppressing the
poor. He thought people should be treated equal.
"He was very astute in the game of politics," Squires added. "He
was a behind-the-scenes man. He knew how to hit the sensitive
nerve of the movers and shakers of this town, and he did it with
class." He was adept at networking long before it had a name.
An Enduring Legacy
For Egan, who spent a lifetime educating himself to become more
effective, DePaul's Egan Hope Scholars program is a fitting
legacy. Since his death, more that $32,000 has been contributed
in his memory to the scholarship endowment fund, including a
leadership gift of $25,000, according to the office of
Development. Begun in 1992, the program has provided
scholarships for 40 minority students from disadvantaged
neighborhoods who would not otherwise get the chance to go to
college and who share Egan's commitment to community service. A
half dozen new Egan Hope Scholars started this fall.
Despite Egan’s sometimes controversial reputation, DePaul did
not object to naming the Egan Urban Center of Egan when it was
founded in 1995. DePaul had awarded Egan an honorary doctorate
in 1985. "I used to enjoy pointing out in my introduction of the
Center, and often of our namesake Father Egan himself, that one
thing that I liked about DePaul University is that around here,
they named things after people while they were still alive, to
enjoy the honor," said EUC Executive Director Michael Bennett.
“While we at the Egan Center will miss him, we are eternally
inspired by his spirit and his great work.”
Roach, who came out of retirement to work part-time with Egan at
DePaul, has now officially re-retired and plans to do volunteer
work. “He left Peggy work that will last her a couple years,”
Squires predicted.
"He's still around," he added. "As long as people ask why are
there poor people, Egan's still going to be around and want
answers." |
|
| |
|
|
|
