Doctors have postponed surgery for a pacemaker implant for Cardinal Edward Egan, the archbishop of New York.
The surgery scheduled for Monday morning would be temporarily delayed until Egan could regain his strength, New York Archdiocese spokesman Joe Zwilling said Sunday evening.
Egan, whose nine-year run as the city's archbishop is due to end on April 15, has been hospitalized with stomach pains since Saturday night at St. Vincent's Hospital, Zwilling said. Following a battery of tests, doctors determined that a pacemaker was necessary.
Zwilling said Egan was awake and alert when he arrived at the hospital. It was unknown if he would be able to take part in any Holy Week activities.
The 77-year-old Egan, shepherd to 2.5 million Catholics across about 400 parishes, made headlines last month when he said that it was time for the church to consider the ordination of married men.
“It’s a perfectly legitimate discussion,” Egan told radio host and New York Post columnist Fred U. Dicker. “I think it has to be looked at.”
Timothy Dolan, currently the archbishop of Milwaukee, will be taking over next week for Egan, who's being forced into retirement, having passed the church's mandatory retirement age of 75.
