Family members bid farewell to their one-and-only Phil

Of all the memories Cathy Hannan has of her tenacious Uncle Phil, the sight of him swimming into the Atlantic yards past the danger zone still makes her shake her head.

“He would go way out into the water and the lifeguard would be having a heart attack, trying to whistle him in,” said Hannan, recalling beach trips to Ventnor City, N.J., north of Ocean City. “We’d see (the lifeguards) mustering the boats, and we’d just go up to them and say, ‘Forget it. He’s fine.’”

Arriving at St. Louis Cathedral for the Oct. 6 funeral of her beloved uncle, the daughter of the archbishop’s only surviving sibling paused to thank locals for the overwhelming affection shown to her family during the four-day salute to New Orleans’ 11th archbishop.

On one hand, Cathy Hannan thought of Archbishop Hannan as “Mr. Normal” – the uncle who played Monopoly with her on visits to the Hannan family’s Maryland home and joined her on beach trips to the Jersey shore.

The family ‘legend’

Then there was the larger-than-life paratrooper-chaplain who would regale her into the wee hours with stories of liberating Nazi concentration camps.

“He was Uncle Phil to us, but later we realized, ‘He said the eulogy at John Kennedy’s funeral,’” Hannan said, chuckling.

On the morning of Archbishop Hannan’s funeral, Cathy’s sister, Peggy Hannan Laramie, said she was still overcome by the thousands – Catholic and non-Catholic – who visited her uncle as he lay in repose at Notre Dame Seminary and lined city streets for his Oct. 5 funeral procession to St. Louis Cathedral.

“The exciting thing about the procession on Wednesday was that it brought together everything that our uncle represented,” Laramie said. “It represented his faith and his love of New Orleans. People of all ages – whether young or old, strong or frail – made the effort to come out and thank someone who had protected and loved them all his life.”

Stories touched the family

She said her family was “so touched” by the countless “Hannan stories” related by locals.

“We’re so grateful to Archbishop Aymond for preparing an event that was so celebratory of the life Uncle Phil lived,” Laramie said.

Noting that his brother had lived a long and full 98 years, Jerry Hannan, the archbishop’s 89-year-old brother, said family members’ sadness at Archbishop Hannan’s mortal death was tempered by their joy and pride in a life well lived.

The retired chemist, who bears a striking resemblance to his late brother, said he would never forget the moment Archbishop Hannan’s funeral cortege turned into the French Quarter at Chartres Street.

“There was this silence over the whole area,” Jerry Hannan said. “All you could hear were the hoof-beats of the horses. That was impressive.”

Before his death, Archbishop Hannan asked his brother to be sure to “take a minute at the funeral” to thank his Louisiana flock, Hannan said. The promised note of gratitude was read by Archbishop Aymond at the funeral Mass.

“Invariably, (Archbishop Hannan) would say, ‘I couldn’t do anything without the priests and the people of New Orleans,’” Jerry Hannan said.

Learned something new

Joining relatives at a post-funeral reception in the French Quarter, Nancy Collins, Archbishop Hannan’s second cousin and co-author of his autobiography, “The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots,” said she grew up hearing about “Phil” – a beloved cousin and contemporary of her father, who, like the archbishop, grew up as a child of immigrants in Washington, D.C.

Yet even having spent hundreds of hours interviewing the archbishop for the book, Collins said the whole picture of the priest’s life didn’t come into full focus until she witnessed the outpouring of love from the throngs in New Orleans.

“I actually didn’t realize the scope of what he did down here, the breadth of it,” said Collins, a journalist who lives in New York City. “But I can see him doing it. Hehad Herculean willpower. He always did. You couldn’t stop him. Once he put his mind to something that was it. I just didn’t realize all the political machinations he had to go through to get those things done.”

Pointing to her cousin’s “incredible brain” and equally amazing energy, Collins said the joke among family members on the day of the funeral procession was, “If Phil were walking the route, the procession would have moved twice as fast.”

“When you were with him, you were exhausted,” Collins said, recalling a 36-hour trip with Archbishop Hannan to his book’s Indiana publisher. Despite a marathon flight delay, multiple meetings, storytelling sessions and media interviews, the then-96-year-old archbishop was able to fulfill his usual routine of prayers and Mass, and meet Collins for an 11 p.m. dinner, the latter capped off by “a long conversation” on the topic of forgiveness.

“He had been up since 6 o’clock that morning,” Collins recalls. “He was indefatigable.”

At the funeral, Collins was dumbfounded by the procession of so many bishops. She said she had always seen her relative as a mostly future-oriented person, but that the sea of white miters bobbing down the cathedral’s center aisle suddenly reminded her of his formidable past.

“I thought, ‘My God, these (bishops) were all his protégées – they just kept coming and coming,” Collins said.

She said the funeral homily by Msgr. Clinton Doskey hit home with the family, even shedding light on a few things his relatives did not know about Archbishop Hannan, including how he came to live at the St. Pius X rectory in the early 2000s.

“When he needed a place to stay, he simply approached Msgr. Doskey to ask if he could move in with him (at St. Pius X),” Collins said. “That was what the great thing was about Father Phil. He was at ease in the White House, but he was also completely comfortable with nothing. He could go and say, ‘Look, I need a place to stay. Can I stay with you?’ I found that to be very moving.”

Collins was also touched by Msgr. Doskey’s description of seeing his longtime friend on his knees, praying his rosary.

“There was a lot of interesting foliage around his life, but at the core was his faith,” Collins said, pointing to one of Msgr. Doskey’s examples of Archbishop Hannan’s inner discipline: his insistence on the proper stacking of rectory pots and pans.

“He always had a way to do everything,” Collins said. “He always wanted to get it done, but he was so charming and funny along with that (impatience). He could get away with it.”

Collins knew just how far that charisma went every time she told a local she was related to Archbishop Hannan.

“I’d say to Phil, ‘Dropping your name (in New Orleans) is better than dropping Mick Jagger’s,’” Collins said. “He was a rock star down here!”

            Beth Donze can be reached at [email protected].