Cardinal Edward Egan, former head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and of Bridgeport, died at a hospital today at the age of 82.  Egan was pronounced dead after going into cardiac arrest.  In 1988, he was appointed the Bishop of the Diocese of Bridgeport by Pope John Paul II.  That Dioces oversees parishes in Fairfield County.

He was appointed Archbishop of New York in 2000 and made a cardinal in 2001.

Egan was archbishop during the Sept. 11 terror attacks during which he anointed the dead at a lower Manhattan hospital and presided over many funerals for victims.

He was a scholar of church law and spoke Latin fluently. John Paul chose him to help with the massive job of reviewing a revised canon law code for the global church.

A native of Illinois, Egan retired as New York archbishop in 2009.