[2] Patrick Hannan found work as a plumber, building his trade into a flourishing business that weathered even the Great Depression.

Before high school graduation, he surprised his family by saying that instead of taking the entrance exam to gain admittance into the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he would become a priest.

[1] In the summer of 1940, due to World War II, all American seminarians were ordered to leave Italy by the U.S. Secretary of State, prompting Hannan to return to Washington.

[citation needed] After returning to Washington, Hannan was assigned as curate at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Baltimore, Maryland.

Hannan was in Rome for the Second Vatican Council in November 1963 when news reached him about the assassination of President Kennedy, forcing his immediate return to Washington.

Hannan instituted a Social Apostolate program in 1966 which now provides over 20 million pounds of free food each year to 42,000 needy women, children and elderly.

He also reformed the Archdiocesan Catholic Charities system, which now serves as the largest non-governmental social service agency in the New Orleans metropolitan area.

At the same time, the demographics of the city were changing, as Catholic whites moved to the suburbs, while Orleans Parish became increasingly Protestant.

Hannan, who considered the visit the highlight of his tenure as Archbishop, was the Pontiff's personal guide throughout his three-day tour of the city.

In 1994 Hannan offered graveside prayers at the interment of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis in Arlington National Cemetery.

[2] During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Hannan remained at a studio in a Catholic television station he had founded in Metairie, in order to protect it from looting.

He had moved there, from his private residence in Covington, Louisiana, in June 2011; he had grown increasingly frail in his last months because of a series of strokes and other health problems.

The full-page announcement was mostly an anti-abortion appeal expressing particular concern over the potential threat that the "evil" Freedom of Choice Act might be passed into law by the incoming United States Congress and the administration of President Barack Obama.