In Loving Memory of Archbishop Philip Hannan on his birthday. He was the former Archbishop of New Orleans.~ Hannan was one of two living United States bishops to have attended all four sessions of Vatican II, along with Raymond Hunthausen, Archbishop Emeritus of Seattle, Washington. During his 9 years as Auxiliary Bishop of Washington, and because of his skills as a press officer in both Baltimore and Washington, Hannan became acquainted with several prominent politicians, especially the Kennedy family. It was his familiarity with the Kennedys that would move Hannan into the national spotlight. Hannan was in Rome for meetings of the Second Session of the Second Vatican Council in November 1963 when news reached him concerning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which forced his immediate return to Washington. At Kennedys state funeral mass, Richard Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, served as the principal celebrant. Cushing was a close friend of the family who had witnessed and blessed the marriage of Senator Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953, baptized two of their children, given the invocation at President Kennedys inauguration, and officiated at the recent funeral of the Presidents infant son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy. Hannan, however, was asked by the Kennedy family to deliver the homily at the low or recited Requiem Mass (as opposed to a high or sung Requiem Mass which a high government official would ordinarily receive), which substituted for a formal eulogy, since a traditional eulogy was not permitted by the Catholic Church (the first presidential funeral to feature a formal eulogy was that of Kennedys successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1973). This responsibility normally would have fallen to the Archbishop of Washington at the time, Patrick Cardinal OBoyle, but he generously allowed his assistant to do so.[6] In 1968, he returned to Washington from New Orleans to deliver the graveside eulogy for Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and in 1994, he offered graveside prayers at the interment of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis in Arlington National Cemetery. Archbishop of New Orleans[edit] During the Fourth Session of Vatican II, specifically on September 29, 1965, Hannan was appointed as the eleventh Archbishop of New Orleans, succeeding Archbishop John Cody (later Cardinal), who had been transferred to Chicago. He moved to New Orleans only weeks after Hurricane Betsy hit the city, and he became a spiritual leader during the rebuilding of both the city and the archdiocese. He presided over the New Orleans archdiocese during a time of great change. The Second Vatican Council concluded on December 8, 1965, and Archbishop Hannan led the effort to implement the Councils policies of reform within the archdiocese. Hannan instituted a Social Apostolate program in 1966 which now provides over 20 million pounds of free food each year to 42,000 needy women, children and elderly. He also reformed the Archdiocesan Catholic Charities system, which now serves as the largest non-governmental social service agency in the New Orleans metropolitan area
Posted on: Tue, 20 May 2014 10:41:28 +0000
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