We’ve never met, Michelle, but along with millions of my fellow Americans, I’ve been highly impressed with the manner in which you’ve conducted your affairs as our First Lady, though this was before I sat down to read Michelle Malkin’s Culture of Corruption.

More years ago than I care to tally up, around fourth grade, my religion teacher, a Sister of St. Joseph, at St. Mark’s School in St. Paul, Minnesota, introduced us miniature theologians to the concept of differentiating between sinning by commission or omission, which didn’t concern me much then, but has certainly done so quite regularly since, such as now.

The question I asked myself before beginning this commentary was: How many readers have known about Michelle’s indifference to the poor ? Is this brief slice of her political life going to be scandalous to some?

Then, I decided being true to Monsignor John Egan’s selfless, courageous service to the poor wherever his assignments took him, it would be a betrayal to his memory to edit out her connection with the Chicago Transit Authority, through her prestigious position as chairman of the Board of Trustees and her work at the University of Chicago’s Medical Center.

Egan’s work in the 1960s with Saul Alinsky and Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation laid the groundwork for what is now a national pattern of community organizing projects, based on interfaith coalition of congregations.

In 1965, despite his doctor’s orders to avoid stress to a damaged heart, he responded to the Rev. Dr.Martin Luther King Jr’s appeal to members of the clergy to march in Salem, Ala.

Jack Egan was already well known for publicly criticizing the efforts of urban renewal projects and public housing in established neighborhoods. He tangled with Mayor Richard Daly of Chicago, challenged the University of Chicago’s neighborhoods’ renewal plans and complained of the dictatorial powers of urban planners like Robert Moses in New York City.

About a month before he died, he circulated for publication a plea for the Church to ordain women and married men and give women leading roles in the Vatican.

Egan questioned in the letter: “Why are we not using to the fullest the gifts and talents of women who constitute the majority of our membership throughout the world? I label myself a dissenter. Yet, prayerful, responsible, dissent has always played a role in the Church.”

From 1958 to 1969, Monsignor Egan directed the Chicago Archdiocese Office of Urban Affairs, where he worked tirelessly for the poor, for decent housing and medical care.

It is an error to fail to remark on the millions who never met Monsignor Egan, or spoke with him, or worked with him, but who think of him as a saint. Let us pray that he will look over our poor and give us the wisdom and courage and energy to serve them as he did so brief a time ago.

To be concluded

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