America mourns giant of post-war Church

Archbishop Hannan, veteran of the Second World War and secret adviser to Kennedy, dies at 98
BY PETER FINNEY JR
RETIRED Archbishop Philip Hannan of New Orleans, a Second World War paratrooper chaplain who befriended and secretly advised John F Kennedy during and after his run for the White House as the first US Catholic president, has died at the age of 98.
Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans said: “Archbishop Hannan in every way was a good shepherd of the Church who was modelled after Christ, not just for Catholics of New Orleans but for the whole community.
“We will miss him, but at 98 he has lived a full life. We truly believe in faith that he will feast not just at table of the Eucharist but at the table of the Lord in heaven,” he said.
Archbishop Hannan had become increasingly frail after a series of strokes and other health problems. He had moved in June from his home to Chateau de Notre Dame, a residential complex and care home for elderly people that he first envisioned and dedicated in 1977.
“From the timeArchbishop Hannan came here right after Hurricane Betsy in 1965, he truly made New Orleans his home,” Archbishop Aymond said. “This was his parish and his archdiocese, and it had no boundaries. He was there for anyone and everyone. That was his goal in life.
“He always quoted St Paul and he truly believed that his mission and ministry was to preach the Gospel untiringly both in actions and in words.” Archbishop Aymond received the body of the late archbishop on Monday at the Notre Dame seminary chapel. An evening of prayer was celebrated by the priests of the archdiocese, followed by a wake service and public viewing.
ArchbishopAymond was to celebrate a funeral Mass for Archbishop Hannan yesterday at the cathedral. After that Archbishop Hannan was to be buried in a crypt beneath the sanctuary.
Archbishop Hannan was the third-oldestAmerican bishop, and was one of the two last surviving US bishops to have attended all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) as a bishop.
A staunch defender of civil rights and the unborn, as well as a fierce proponent during Vatican II of the morality of nuclear deterrence,Archbishop Hannan burnished his reputation for fearlessness in 2005 by riding out Hurricane Katrina alone at age 92 in the fortress-like studios of Focus Worldwide, an offshoot of the television network he created in the 1980s. Although the building’s back-up generator failed the veteran 82nd Airborne chaplain had a ready supply of water, peanut butter and crackers – as well as a golf club to ward off potential looters. Five days later, he talked his way through police barricades and drove across the 24mile causeway bridge over Lake Pontchartrain to give pep talks to weary first responders. Never the master of understatement, he called it “the easiest drive of my life”. He was ordainedAuxiliary Bishop of Washington in 1956 and was attending the final session of Vatican II – with the responsibility, because of his background as a Catholic newspaper editor, of co-ordinating daily press briefings for English-speaking reporters – when Pope Paul VI appointed him as the 11thArchbishop of New Orleans in 1965.
The appointment came 20 days after Hurricane Betsy had flooded and damaged large swathes of New Orleans.
As archbishop he endeared himself to a Catholic populace that could be wary of outsiders through his plain talk against abortion and his outreach to the poor, the elderly and those of other faiths.
He was a dynamo in building affordable apartments for the poor and elderly, navigating government channels to finance the projects. The result was Christopher Homes, the housing arm of the archdiocese that now provides thousands of affordable flats.
In 2010Archbishop Hannan published his memoirs, The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots, which documented his career as a seminarian in Rome in the 1930s during the build up to the Second World War, his service as a paratrooper chaplain for the 82ndAirborne and his confidential relationship with Kennedy.
Archbishop Hannan and Kennedy were so close that first lady Jacqueline Kennedy asked him to deliver the eulogy at the assassinated pres ident’s funeral Mass in 1963 at St Matthew Cathedral in Washington. According to protocol, that responsibility should have fallen to Washington Archbishop Patrick O’Boyle, who graciously allowed his auxiliary to deliver the eulogy.
In 1968Archbishop Hannan returned to Washington to deliver the eulogy at the funeral of Senator Robert Kennedy. In 1994 he offered graveside prayers at the interment of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis inArlington National Cemetery.
The archbishop retired a year after the historic 1987 visit of John Paul II to New Orleans, an event he called the highlight of his life as a priest.
Born in Washington on May 20 1913, Archbishop Hannan was the fifth of eight children. His father, an Irish immigrant, came to the United States at 18 and found work as a plumber, building his trade into a flourishing business.
Archbishop Hannan wrote in his autobiography: “The road to heaven begins – and ends – with faith in God from whom all blessings, wisdom, tolerance, joy and forgiveness have always – and will ever – flow. Consequently, I have come to believe that only when we get to heaven will we truly understand what we accomplished here on earth...
“From my perspective as a priest I will accomplish in death what I could not in life because as priests we are most fully alive when we die. If we don’t feel that way, we certainly have not served the cause of Christ as we were meant to. In the final spiritual analysis, to fulfil the will of God, a priest must die in life as did his own Son. And when that times comes, with the grace of God, I am ready.”