The priest abuse scandal is certainly the biggest scandal in the Catholic Church today; but it’s not the only one. What about the shameless puffery and preening deceptions of this man, Edward Cardinal Egan, the SO CALLED ‘Archbishop of New York’?
Like most other people inclined to believe the best about people, I had always assumed that when Edward Egan called himself Archbishop of New York that that meant he 
was really the Archbishop of New York, as in the Archbishop of the five boroughs.
The truth, I’m sorry to say, turns out to be very, very different.
As you can see from this map, 
Archbishop Egan’s territory includes only Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island. Most of his archdiocese — if not most of his parishioners — is actually out in the suburbs in places like Westchester and Rockland and Dutchess counties. So even though Egan styles himself ‘Archbishop of New York’ he’s actually not Archbishop, or bishop for that matter, in Brooklyn or Queens.
Now certainly there are a lot of Catholics in Manhattan. But when I think of New York Catholics I think it’s the Outer Boroughs that most readily come to mind, don’t you?
So who’s this other Bishop of New York? Well, that would be Thomas V. Daily, Bishop of Brooklyn. In fact, 
you don’t have to go much further than the title Daily goes by to see he’s cut from a very different cloth than his colleague on the other side of the river. While Egan is off showboating as ‘Archbishop of New York,’ Daily is content to go by the unassuming title of Bishop of Brooklyn. But in fact, he’s also bishop in Queens too!
So, who really deserves the title? Well, the website of the Diocese of Brooklyn says that Daily’s diocese caters to more than 1.8 million Catholics. I couldn’t find a number on the Archdiocese of New York’s website, but DCL Online (the “bi-weekly eLetter for Catholic professionals“) says Egan’s Archdiocese caters to more than 2.3 million Catholics. (Unlike the Diocese of Brooklyn’s website, the Archdiocese of New York’s doesn’t seem to have any 
page with statistics. But after what we’ve discussed, is that really a surprise?)
Now, Egan’s flock is clearly bigger — by about half a million people. But how many of those 2.3 million are real New Yorkers? Don’t you figure it’s possible that a half million or more of Egan’s flock are just folks from the suburbs? I’d say it’s pretty likely. And, if true, that would mean that Bishop Daily — content to go by Bishop of Brooklyn — is actually more a New York bishop than Egan.
Edward Egan. When will he come clean?
