Journalists say helping archbishop with memoirs a privilege of lifetime
By Mark Zimmermann
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Two noted journalists helped tell the story of a lifetime, and for them, it was the privilege of a lifetime.
Nancy Collins and Peter Finney Jr. assisted retired New Orleans Archbishop Philip M. Hannan in completing his memoir, "The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots," published by Our Sunday Visitor.
The book's subtitle, "From Combat, to Camelot, to Katrina," summarizes the eventful life of the 97-year-old churchman and native Washingtonian who served as a World War II chaplain, as a secret adviser to President John F. Kennedy, and who reached out to people after Hurricane Katrina hit.
In Washington, Archbishop Hannan served as a pastor of St. Patrick Parish downtown, as chancellor and auxiliary bishop for the archdiocese, and founded the John Carroll Society for Washington area laypeople and was as founding editor of the Catholic Standard newspaper. Most famously, he delivered the homily at the November 1963 funeral Mass for Kennedy.
As a bishop, Archbishop Hannan participated in the Second Vatican Council. In 1987, he welcomed Pope John Paul II to New Orleans.
He helped integrate Catholic schools and parishes in Washington, and later worked to promote civil rights and racial justice in New Orleans. As a chaplain, he ministered to people freed from concentration camps near the end of World War II, and as a bishop, he spoke out forcefully about the dignity of all human life from conception to natural death.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime story. That it involved my family was a bonus," said Collins, whose father, Aeneas Patrick Collins, was a first cousin and boyhood friend of Archbishop Hannan's.
In her career, Collins has interviewed numerous public figures and celebrities, including President Bill Clinton, then-Sen. Joe Biden, actor Jack Nicholson, actress Elizabeth Taylor and journalist Tim Russert. She has worked for, among others, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and NBC's "Today Show."
"I think Fr. Phil is the most interesting of them all," she said during a telephone interview with the Catholic Standard from New York City, where she lives and works.
Even as he rose in prominence in the church, Archbishop Hannan was always "Fr. Phil" to Collins, who got to know him at family picnics and other gatherings over the years.
About three years ago, she received an unexpected phone call from "Fr. Phil." He was writing his memoir and asked for her help.
She emphasized from the start that she would treat him like an editor would, not as a family member. Examining the manuscript he had prepared, she told him that it was factual, "but I need to hear your voice."
Finney, the award-winning executive editor and general manager of the Clarion Herald, newspaper of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, interviewed him about 40 times over a two-year period, and Collins conducted numerous telephone and in-person interviews with the archbishop.
"The most amazing thing to me was sitting with him in his dining room area at his home in Covington, La.," said Finney. "His recall was utterly amazing. He'd talk about something that happened at Vatican II off the top of his head, and 95 out of 100 times he was exactly right."
"The conversations we had were so interesting. I knew this was remarkable material, and I wanted to do justice to it," said Collins, who was determined to have Archbishop Hannan's wit and intelligence, as well as his faith, shine through in the book.
The book cover pictures then-Fr. Hannan's combat boots. He wore them as a chaplain to the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division; his wartime service included ministering to soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge.
"He wanted to be in combat, on the front lines. He didn't tell his parents he was in the parachute division, they would have fainted," Collins said. "He's a front-line kind of guy. He wanted to serve and be with those guys. ... He really wanted to be there and help them any way he could."
That same spirit and faith was exemplified in Archbishop Hannan's service to the people of New Orleans, where he became their archbishop in 1965.
Finney noted that Archbishop Hannan, "growing up in Washington, such a political environment, he knew how to go about things and get things done," and he saw politicians as regular people, not as revered figures. Immediately after arriving in New Orleans, Archbishop Hannan reached out to people suffering from the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy.
"He was a guy during hurricanes or big storms, he was out front," Finney said.
After Katrina hit five years ago, Archbishop Hannan, then 92 and retired for many years, first guarded the Catholic television studio he had founded. Then he set out in a boat to minister to survivors and to police and other public safety workers.
"He knew his presence alone would lift people," Finney said. "He always said, 'I have to be there, to be present to the people.'"
Archbishop Hannan has suffered strokes in recent years that have left him in frail health, but his indomitable spirit remains, and earlier this year, he was able to attend the Super Bowl, sit in New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson's box, and see his beloved Saints win. The archbishop had offered a prayer at the Saints' first game in 1967.
"He had a basic trust in God, that he was going to do God's will," Finney said. "That's what was always important to him, doing God's will." |