Ordained for the Archdiocese of Chicago, Egan worked several years in its inner city. In these early years, Egan was befriended and influenced by
Saul Alinsky, an early leader of
community organizing and co-founder of the Industrial Areas Foundation.
Egan accepted a position at the
University of Notre Dame, where he founded and directed the Catholic Committee on Urban Ministry, "a national network of clergy, religious, and lay persons engaged in social ministry".[1] One Egan's accomplishments of the early seventies was to deliver about 25 non-episcopal leaders of the Catholic Church in the country to a
PADRES-sponsored meeting held at the
Mexican American Cultural Center (now called the Mexican American Catholic College) in
San Antonio, Texas. The focus of the meeting was to garner greater recognition and respect for the "Hispanic Agenda" within the institutions of the Catholic Church in the United States.
John Joseph Egan figures prominently in the 2009 book Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America by
Beryl Satter. The book discusses Egan's work co-founding, then leading, the
Contract Buyers League, which fought the discriminatory real estate practice known as "contract selling" that was used to exploit newly urbanized black home buyers.[2]
The organization United Power for Action and Justice was co-founded by Egan.[3]
The Monsignor John J. Egan Office of Urban Education and Community Partnerships, at
DePaul University, is named in his honor.[4] Egan's papers are housed in the manuscript collection at the University of Notre Dame Archives.[5]