O'CONNOR, JOHN JOSEPH

Cardinal, archbishop of new york; b. Jan. 15, 1920, Philadelphia; d. May 3, 2000, New York. The fourth child of Thomas and Dorothy Gomple O'Connor, he grew up in a working-class neighborhood in southwest Philadelphia, where he attended local public elementary and junior high schools and West Catholic High School for Boys before entering St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in 1936. Ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia on Dec. 15, 1945, he spent the next seven years as a teacher and guidance counselor in archdiocesan high schools while also serving as a parish priest.

In 1952 O'Connor began a 27-year career as a navy chaplain. His service with the Marines during the Vietnam War earned him the Legion of Merit. He strongly defended American involvement in the Vietnam War in A Chaplain Looks at Vietnam (Cleveland 1968), but later he expressed regret for having done so. In 1972 O'Connor was appointed the first Catholic senior chaplain at the U.S. Naval Academy, and in 1975 he attained the highest position available to him when he became the U.S. Navy Chief of Chaplains with the rank of rear admiral. He retired in 1979. During his military career, he also earned a doctorate in political science from Georgetown University.

In 1979 O'Connor was appointed titular bishop of Curzola and auxiliary to the military vicar, Terence Cardinal cooke. O'Connor first became well known nationally when he was appointed to the five-member episcopal committee that prepared "The Challenge of Peace," the pastoral letter issued by the U.S. hierarchy in 1983. One week after the publication of the pastoral letter, he was appointed the bishop of Scranton, Pa. He was installed in June of 1983, but he remained in Scranton for only another seven months; on Jan. 31, 1984, he was appointed archbishop of New York in succession to Cardinal Cooke, who had died the previous October. One year later, Pope John Paul II made him cardinal, with the titular church of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo. On the same day as his elevation, it was announced that the Military Ordinariate had been reorganized as the Archdiocese for the Military Services, U.S.A., severing the connection between the archbishop of New York and the Military Ordinariate that had existed since its inception in 1917.

Cardinal Cooke, a shy man who disliked confrontation, made no attempt to fill the national role of his predecessor, Francis Cardinal Spellman. By contrast, O'Connor seemed to welcome confrontation and clearly aimed at assuming a prominent role in the U.S. hierarchy. He liked to be compared to the feisty John Hughes, New York's first archbishop, and he favored a style of leadership that seemed to be modeled on that of John Paul II. Although he was 64 years old when he became archbishop, O'Connor adopted a grueling schedule with heavy emphasis on preaching and public appearances, the frequent use of both the press and television, and numerous pastoral visits to parishes and institutions. He also enjoyed occupying center stage at large-scale special events, such as the annual Mass for the Disabled in St. Patrick's Cathedral and a youth rally at Yankee Stadium that drew 40,000 people. In deference to New York's large Hispanic population, he mastered Spanish sufficiently well to celebrate Mass and preach in that language.

As in Scranton, O'Connor gave high priority to right-to-life issues. At a press conference in June of 1984, he answered a question about Catholic politicians and abortion legislation with the statement: "I do not see how a Catholic in good conscience can vote for an individual expressing himself or herself as favoring abortion." The comment was widely interpreted as a criticism of Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic candidate for vice-president, and it led to public sparring between O'Connor and Governor Mario Cuomo of New York.

O'Connor's well-attended weekly press conferences after Sunday Mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral gave him a forum to comment on public issues. He relished the publicity, but he discontinued the press conferences in 1990, candidly admitting that he had said "some dumb things."

Two groups with whom O'Connor established particularly warm relationships were organized labor and New York's large and influential Jewish community. The Service Employees International Union, grateful for his support of labor unions, publicly hailed him as "the patron saint of working people." Commenting on the award, Monsignor George G. Higgins said, "Few bishops in U.S. history have been as consistently supportive as Cardinal O'Connor of labor's basic rights." Dr. Ronald Sobel, senior rabbi of Temple Emanuel-El, said: "I know of no member of the American Catholic hierarchy who has been more consistently sensitive to the interests of the Jewish people." At the time of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the former admiral tried to restrain widespread pro-war enthusiasm by declaring: "No war is good. Every war is at best the lesser of evils." Mario Cuomo, with whom he often clashed, paid tribute to O'Connor's commitment to social justice by saying, "His work should have earned the cardinal a reputation as one of the Vatican's favorite social progressives as well as one of its premier conservative dogmatists."

O'Connor committed the archdiocese to maintaining its network of parochial schools, especially in poor neighborhoods, despite the sharp decline in the number of

teaching sisters and brothers. The Catholic Church also remained a major provider of health care and social services to the poor in New York City. However, the staffing of parishes became increasingly difficult since O'Connor was reluctant to close or consolidate parishes even as the number of active diocesan priests fell from 777 in 1983 to 585 in 1999. The number of diocesan seminarians decreased even more precipitously, from 221 to 84, despite O'Connor's persistent personal efforts to promote vocations.

Cardinal O'Connor offered his resignation to Pope John Paul II on reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75, but the pope allowed him to remain in office. In October of that year O'Connor welcomed the pontiff to New York for a successful papal visit that included a Mass before 125,000 people in Central Park. In late August of 1999 O'Connor underwent surgery for a brain tumor from which he never fully recovered, although he continued to make limited public appearances until the following March. On the occasion of his 80th birthday, the U.S. Congress bestowed upon him its highest civilian award, the Congressional Gold Medal. He died on May 3, 2000. He was buried in the crypt of St. Patrick's Cathedral, next to Pierre toussaint, a Haitian born into slavery who worked as a barber in New York and whom John Paul II had declared "Venerable" in 1996. O'Connor had

brought Toussaint's remains to St. Patrick's from an abandoned cemetery for blacks in lower Manhattan, and he had requested that he be buried next to him.

Bibliography: j. o'connor and e. koch, His Eminence and Hizzoner (New York 1989). n. hentoff, John Cardinal O'Connor: At the Storm Center of a Changing Catholic Church (New York 1988).

[t. j. shelley]