Former Archbishop Hannan Who Gave JFK Eulogy Dies - ABC News

Phillip Matthew Hannan, the former New Orleans archbishop who sought to console a grieving nation with his eulogy for John F. Kennedy and who served more than three decades as the popular leader of his Roman Catholic archdiocese, has died on the 47th anniversary of his ordination.
The 98-year-old clergyman, who was in declining health for years, died peacefully before dawn Thursday. Hannan's body will lie in state at New Orleans Notre Dame seminary for three days starting Monday followed by a funeral mass Thursday afternoon at St. Louis Cathedral here.
Hannan was assigned to New Orleans in 1965 from Washington, where he had been an auxiliary bishop since 1956. When he went to inspect his future haunts at the ancient St. Louis Cathedral — in the riotous French Quarter teeming with tourists, street musicians, mimes and tarot card readers — he showed his unique humor as a churchman.
"This is the only city where an archbishop can walk into his cathedral while a band outside in Jackson Square is playing 'When the Saints Go Marching In,'" he famously quipped.
Hannan was the 11th archbishop in New Orleans history and its most active, combining conservative politics with generous service to the poor. When he turned 75 and had to retire as archbishop, he became president of WLAE-TV, the public television station he founded.
FILE - In this Aug. 20, 2009 file photo, Archbishops Francis Schulte, 82, left, and Phillip Hannan, 96, talk in St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter of New Orleans during the installation mass of Archbishop Gregory Aymond. Hannan, who gave the eulogy for President John F. Kennedy and later served more than three decades as the head of the New Orleans Roman Catholic Archdiocese, died peacefully early Thursday morning, Sept. 29, 2011. He was 98. (AP Photo/Judi Bottoni, File) Close
When Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, the president's widow Jacqueline asked Hannan to deliver the eulogy because of his close personal relationship with the president, which dated to the 1940s. He also officiated at a quiet reburial of two Kennedy infants in 1964 so their bodies could be near their father's in Arlington National Cemetery. And in 1968, Hannan traveled again from New Orleans to give the graveside eulogy for Sen. Robert. F. Kennedy.
When Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died of cancer in 1994, Hannan was again at Arlington to preside at a brief service before her burial.
Highlights of his tenure as archbishop included the 1987 visit of Pope John Paul II — a visit that Hannan began angling for in 1984. After a while, said Hannan, "Every time he saw me, he'd simply say, 'New Orleans! New Orleans!'"
Hannan lost a struggle to block the "no nukes" pastoral letter approved by the nation's Catholic bishops in Chicago in 1983. He argued that the politics inherent in the letter could not help disarmament talks.
And he was outspoken in his opposition to legalized abortion. When Sen. Mary Landrieu was running for her first term in 1996, Hannan said it would be a sin to vote for her because of her support of abortion rights.
Despite what were labeled conservative views, Hannan had few peers in liberal social action.
He said he decided to push the diocese to serve the poor when he walked through the city's squalid public housing projects in 1965, shortly after his transfer from Washington.
Hannan created what was at the time the largest housing program for the elderly — 2,780 units — of any U.S. diocese. The archdiocese also operates one of the biggest Catholic Charities in the nation. When Hannan stepped down, its $20 million budget was helping more than 47,000 people a year.
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