O'CONNOR, MARTIN JOHN

Archbishop, rector of north american college, nuncio, and president of the Papal Commission for Social Communications; b. Scranton, Pennsylvania, May 18, 1900; d. Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Dec. 1, 1986. The only child of John and Belinda Caffrey O'Connor. After graduation from St. Thomas College (now University of Scranton), O'Connor entered the North American College in Rome where he earned doctorates in theology and canon law; he was ordained in Rome in 1924. Returning to the diocese of Scranton, Father O'Connor served in various administrative offices, and in 1943 he was consecrated Auxiliary Bishop of Scranton.

In December of 1946, O'Connor was named rector of the North American College in Rome. He was responsible for restoring the Via dell' Umilta and Castel Gandolfo properties, abandoned during the war years, and for building the new college on the Janiculum. Pope Pius XII dedicated the new facility on Oct. 14, 1953. In all, O'Connor served as rector for 18 years. Pope John XXIII named him archbishop in September of 1959.

Role in the Media. In 1948 Pius XII directed that a commission for religious and didactic films be organized with O'Connor as president. This commission was replaced in 1952 by the Pontifical Commission for Motion Pictures and extended in 1954 to include radio and television. In 1961 John XXIII, laying down new rules, elevated the Pontifical Commission for Cinema, Radio, and Television to a permanent office of the Roman Curia. Pope Paul VI, at the mandate of the Fathers of Vatican Council II, established the Pontifical Commission for the Media of Social Communications and extended its competency to embrace all media, the press in particular, and appointed to it experts from various countries, including laypersons and members of the press. O'Connor was named president, a position he had held continuously from the inception of the various commissions until his retirement in 1971.

On June 5, 1960, John XXIII appointed O'Connor to the General Preparatory Commission for the Second Vatican Council. Ten days later, he appointed him president of the Preparatory Secretariat for Press and Entertainment. The Secretariat was charged with the preparation of a schema on the media of social communications which, after presentation to the Council Fathers and redrafting, was promulgated on Dec. 4, 1963, by a decree of the Council titled Inter mirifica. Paul VI, at the beginning of the second period of the council, appointed O'Connor chairman of the newly formed press committee that oversaw the accreditation of more than two thousand correspondents and the daily publication, in nine languages, of resumes of the council speeches.

O'Connor served as a member of the press committee at the First General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 1967. In 1969 Paul VI convoked an Extraordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops of which O'Connor was a member. He was appointed to the Second General Assembly in 1971.

Paul VI appointed him nuncio to Malta, a post he held from 1965 to 1969. In 1966 he was appointed vice president of the Post-Conciliar Commission for the Apostolate of the Laity. In 1968 he was named consultor to the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. O'Connor retired in 1971 after having served the Church in Rome during five Pontificates. He returned to the United States in 1979.

Bibliography: v. a. yzermans, American Participation in the Second Vatican Council (New York 1967).

[t. v. banick]