February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Cardinal Egan, 76, a former grand marshal of the parade, will greet and salute marchers as he has done since becoming Archbishop of New York nine years ago, New York archdiocese spokesman, Joe Zwilling, confirmed to the Echo.
Archbishop Dolan, who is 59, was introduced at St. Patrick’s by Cardinal Egan last Sunday and the two appeared together at a press conference Monday.
However Dolan, who is transferring from his current post in Milwaukee, will not formally take control of the archdiocese until his installation on April 15.
Cardinal Egan, meanwhile, will be staying on in the New York area and not moving full time to the Vatican as some have speculated, Zwilling said.
Dolan will be tenth archbishop of New York. All of his predecessors have been Irish born or Irish American. The archdiocese covers three boroughs of New York City and seven counties to its north. There are an estimated 2.5 million Catholics living within its boundaries.
Dolan, at first glance, would appear to more fit the mould of the late Cardinal John O’Connor than the somewhat reserved and businesslike Egan.
Outgoing and affable and quick to acknowledge his Irishness, Dolan, like Egan, is viewed as being orthodox on doctrinal issues.
“My brother bishops, priests, religious women and men, seminarians, committed Catholics of this wonderful Church, I pledge to you my love, my life, my heart, and I can tell you already that I love you, I need so much your prayers and support, I am so honored, humbled, and happy to serve as your pastor,” Dolan said to New York Catholics in a statement posted on the archdiocese website.
The website stated that Dolan was born in 1950, the oldest of five children to Robert and Shirley Dolan. His education began at Holy Infant Grade School in Ballwin, Missouri, and continued at St. Louis Preparatory Seminary, Cardinal Glennon College, and the Pontifical North American College in Rome.
Ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of St. Louis in 1976, Dolan then served as a parish priest and earned his doctorate in church history at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He worked at the Vatican’s embassy in Washington, served on the faculty at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, and returned to Rome as rector of the Pontifical North American College.
He came back to the Archdiocese of St. Louis as auxiliary bishop in June 2001, and was appointed Archbishop of Milwaukee a year later.