The Archdiocese of New York is planning a year-long celebration to commemorate its bicentennial, Edward Cardinal Egan announced during a homily yesterday. Museum exhibits, lectures, concerts, contests, and retreats will take place in the 12 months leading up to the diocese’s 200th anniversary — April 8, 2008.

“We’re going to celebrate in every way we can,” the cardinal said during a press conference after morning Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown.

The diocese yesterday released a partial list of anniversary activities, including an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York titled “Catholics in New York, 1808–1946”; an academic convocation of campus ministers at Columbia University’s St. Paul’s Chapel; an essay, art, film, and oratory contest through the diocese’s Department of Education, and a “Youth Congress” to be held in Westchester in March 2008.

The 10-county Archdiocese of New York, home to about 2.5 million Catholics, comprises Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx, as well as Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester counties. There will be diocese-wide, regional, and parish-based bicentennial events.

Several dozen Manhattan parishes are planning an anniversary gathering that celebrates the ethnic groups that make up the vicariate, or region, according to the Rev. Anthony Kelly of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in East Harlem. “Hopefully, we can all attend a general meeting or a service together,” the Rev. Kelly said. “It’s a very important birthday.”

In honor of the forthcoming bicentennial, the archdiocese last spring inaugurated a capital campaign that to date has brought in about $90 million, according to the diocese’s director of communications, Joseph Zwilling. More than half of the parishes have yet to begin their fund-raising efforts, he said.

Of the money already raised, about $60 million was donated directly to parishes and $30 million came to the Archdiocese from major donors.

Campaign contributions will be used to fund building repairs and additions, and to erase debts at the archdiocese’s 405 parishes. “It could be for a roof, or an endowment, or to build a new parish center,” Mr. Zwilling said. “It’s for whatever each parish decides it needs. It’s being raised by the parishes for the parishes.”

Cardinal Egan said the money would help “eliminate neediness” in the area parishes.

Also in honor of the anniversary, a professor of historical theology at Fordham University, Monsignor Thomas Shelley, was commissioned by the archdiocese to write two books about the history of Catholics in New York.

During his homily yesterday, Cardinal Egan briefly related the history of the Archdiocese of New York, which, together with the archdioceses of Boston, Philadelphia, and Bardstown, Ky., was established in April 1808.

Cardinal Egan left last night for a four-day trip to Rome, where he sits on a committee that oversees Vatican City. The cardinal turns 75 on April 2. At that time, he is required to send a letter of resignation to Pope Benedict XVI, which the pope can accept or reject.

“You can almost say it’s a form letter, and then he can do with it what he pleases — and I have no inside information,” Cardinal Egan said during an interview televised yesterday on WNBC-TV.

During the interview, the cardinal said he would not initiate a conversation with the pope about his forthcoming birthday. “Now, if he wants to bring it up, it’s great,” he said. “And whatever he decides, that’s fine.”

Asked if he’d like to continue to lead the Archdiocese, Cardinal Egan replied, “I think the best thing for me to say is I want to do whatever Benedict XVI wants me to do.”