Cardinal John O'Connor

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Prelate of the Catholic Church John Joseph O'Connor (January 15, 1920--May 3, 2000) was an American priest.

He served as Archbishop of New York from 1984 to his death in 2000, and was named a cardinal in 1985.

He served as an auxiliary bishop of the Military Vicariate of the United States (1979–1983) and Bishop of Scranton (1983–1984).

Early life

O'Connor was born in Philadelphia and the fourth of Thomas J. O'Connor's five children, as well as Dorothy Magdalene (1886–1971), Gustave Gumpel's daughter, a Jewish rabbi, and a kosher butcher and Jewish rabbi. Mary O'Connor Ward Ward found out through genealogical study that their mother was born Jewish and was baptized as a Roman Catholic at age 19. The following year, John's parents were wed.

When O'Connor began attending West Philadelphia Catholic High School for Boys in his junior year of high school, he attended public schools until his junior year of high school. He then enrolled at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.

By Auxiliary Bishop Hugh L. Lamb, O'Connor was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia on December 15, 1945. O'Connor was a faculty member at St. James High School in Chester, Pennsylvania, before his ordination.

During the Korean War, O'Connor was first appointed rear admiral and chief of chaplains of the Navy and oversaw the entire process of obtaining this rating, first accepting transfers from other enlisted rates. Instead of yeomen being sent to help a chaplain for a period before returning to their nominal yeoman rate, the RP rating restored chaplains to a devoted enlisted group. He was made an honorary prelate of his holiness during this period, with the designation of right reverend monsignor on October 27, 1966.

O'Connor received a master's degree in advanced ethics from Villanova University in Philadelphia. He obtained a doctorate in political science from Georgetown University, where he studied under the United States' future Ambassador to the United Nations Pierre Kirkpatrick. "I'm certainly one of the two or three smartest graduate students I've ever encountered," Kirkpatrick said of O'Connor.

Pope John Paul II appointed O'Connor as an auxiliary bishop of the United States and the titular bishop of Cursola on April 24, 1979. He was consecrated to the episcopate at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome by John Paul himself on May 27, 1979, by Cardinals Duraisamy and Eduardo Somalo, co-consecrators.

John Paul II appointed O'Connor as the bishop of Scranton on May 6, 1983, and he was ordained in that role on June 29, 1983.

O'Connor, the Archbishop of New York and Administrator of the Military Vicariate of the United States, was installed on January 26, 1984, following Cardinal Terence Cooke's funeral.

In the consistory of May 25, 1985, O'Connor was elevated to cardinal, with the iconic church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Rome (the original one for the Archbishop of New York from 1946 to 2009).

When O'Connor reached the retirement age for bishops of 75 years in January 1995, he resigned to Pope John Paul II as mandated by canon law, but the Pope refused to honor it. In 1999, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He continued to function as Archbishop of New York until his death.

O'Connor died in the cathedral's crypt underneath the main altar. Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano presided over it. Cardinal Bernard F. Law and the eulogy were delivered by Cardinal William W. Baum at O'Connor's behest.

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former United States President George W. Bush, Former Mayor George Pataki, Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, Former New York City Mayors Ed Koch, and David Dinkins are among the attendees.

Human life

O'Connor was a vocal critic of abortion rights for women, human cloning, capital punishment, human trafficking, and unjust war. "What makes us believe that condoned suicide will not become compulsory suicide," he said adamantly. In 2000, O'Connor called for a "significant reform" of the punitive Rockefeller drug legislation in New York State, which he believes produced "grave injustices."

O'Connor was adamant in his critique of US military policies. He condemned the United States' support for counter-revolutionary guerrilla groups in Central America, condemned American mining of the waters off Nicaragua, raised questions about American military actions abroad in the 1980s.

O'Connor doubted whether the US' cruise missile strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan were morally justified in 1998. "Does the continuing bombing of Yugoslavia show the strength of the Western world or its weakness?" he asked in 1999, in the Catholic New York's weekly newspaper, Catholic New York. O'Connor, three years before the 9/11 attacks in New York City, which occurred after his death, said that the traditional Just War values should be used to evaluate military responses to unconventional warfare and terrorism.

O'Connor's father was a lifelong unionist, and O'Connor was a vocal proponent of organized labor as well as a advocate for the poor and homeless.

O'Connor was vocal during a strike in 1984 by SEIU 1199, the largest health care union in New York City, for threatening to fire striking union members who refused to return to work, calling it "strikebreaking" and promising that no Catholic hospital would do so. The following year, when a deal with SEIU 1199 had not been reached, he threatened to leave the league and join the union unilaterally to strike a deal "that gives justice to the employees."

O'Connor reaffirmed his steadfast dedication to organized labour in his homily at a Labor Day mass at St. Patrick's in 1986: "O'Connor demonstrated his ferocious commitment to organized labour in his homily:

A non-union crew from NBC appeared at the cardinal's residence in 1987, covering one of O'Connor's press conferences. O'Connor refused to admit them, telling his secretary, "tell them they are not welcome."

O'Connor was instrumental in Catholic–Jewish relations. He slammed anti-Semitism, saying that one "cannot be both a faithful Christian and an anti-Semite." Anti-Semitism is incompatible, because it is a sin. In New York City, he wrote an apology to Jewish leaders for past harm done to the Jewish people.

O'Connor sluggish to compensate Jewish Holocaust victims whose funds were held in Switzerland by German Nazi leaders. It was "a human rights issue, not a question of human race," he said. Even when debating him on political issues, Jewish leaders acknowledged that O'Connor had been "a mentor, a strong voice against anti-Semitism."

"A true friend and promoter of Catholic–Jewish relations," O'Connor said, "a humanitarian who used the power of his pulpit to advocate for poor people around the world and in his own neighborhood." Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Laureate, called O'Connor, "a good Christian" and a man "who acknowledges our pain."

4,500 protesters of ACT UP and Women's Health and Mobilization (WHAM) protested O'Connor's positions on HIV/AIDS education, the distribution of condoms in public schools, and abortion rights for women in St. Patrick's Cathedral on December 10, 1989. Inside the cathedral, there had been 43 arrests. Although homosexual behaviour is never permissible, O'Connor's convictions are not, but not in themselves sinful.

Following up on other HIV/AIDS patients, O'Connor set out an attempt to minister to 1,000 people dying of HIV/AIDS and their families. He inspected Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center, where he inspected the sores and empty the bedpans of over 1,100 patients. According to sources, O'Connor was popular with the Saint Vincent's patients, many of whom did not know he was the archbishop and was in favour of other priests who ministered to gay men and those with HIV/AIDS. O'Connor was personally involved in James Zappalorti's funeral in 1990, a gay man who was murdered on Staten Island, New York. O'Connor sponsored a statewide hate crime statute that included crimes motivated by sexual orientation, which was passed shortly after his own death in 2000.

O'Connor strongly opposes Executive Order 50, a canoral order issued by New York Mayor Ed Koch in 1980. All city contractors, including religious organisations, were required to provide services on a non-discriminatory basis with regard to race, creed, age, sex, handicap, and disability, as well as "sexual orientation or affectational preference." The Salvation Army was warned by the city that its child care services would be terminated if the individual fails to comply with the executive order's sexual orientation policies, so the Archdiocese of New York and Ath Israel, an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, threatened to leave if the city's employees were compelled to obey the executive order's sexual orientation rules if pressured to obey. O'Connor said that the executive order would cause the Catholic Church to refuse to endorse homosexual conduct. O'Connor characterized the order in Catholic New York in January 1985 as "an extremely risky precedent [that] could result in unacceptable government interference and excessive entanglement with the Church's internal affairs." He compared homosexual "inclinations" to "behavior" in the traditional Catholic notion of "we do not agree that homosexual conduct... should be elevated to a protected class."

The Salvation Army, the cathedral, and Avivath Israel filed a lawsuit later this year, arguing that the mayor had violated his executive power in issuing Executive Order 50. The New York Supreme Court complied with the plaintiffs in September 1984. The mayor had to withdraw from discrimination based on "sexual orientation or affectation preference" because it was in breach of his authority. The lower court upheld the lower court's decision to strike down Executive Order 50 in June 1985.

O'Connor has fought persistently and vociferously against city and state legislation protecting LGBT citizens, as well as legislation that was introduced by then-mayor Ed Koch, David Dinkins, and Rudy Giuliani, which explicitly opposes discrimination based on gender in housing, public accommodations, and employment.

In New York City's St. Patrick's Day parade, O'Connor supported the Ancient Order of Hibernians' decision to prohibit the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organisation from marching under its own banner. The Hibernians argued that their decision as to which organisations should march in the parade, which honors Saint Patrick, a Catholic saint, was shielded by the First Amendment and that they would not be obliged to admit a group whose values conflicted with theirs. The City of New York ordered the Hibernians to recognize the Irish Lesbian and Gay Union in the parade in 1992, a move that the New York Civil Liberties Union had condemned. The Hibernians were not allowed a permit for the parade until 1993, when a federal judge in New York found that the parade was "patently unconstitutional" and that "a pristine form of expression" in which the parade sponsor had the right to control the tone and content.

O'Connor banned DignityUSA, a LGBT Catholic group, from having masses in parishes in the archdiocese in 1987. O'Connor began attending DignityUSA twice a year after eight years of demonstrations by the group.

O'Connor condemned condom dispensing as an AIDS-prevention step, citing the Catholic Church's instruction that abortion is immoral and sinful. O'Connor denied the claim that condoms given to gay men were not condoms. O'Connor's rebuttal statement was that using a "evil act" was not justified by good intentions, and that the church should not be seen as encouraging sinful conduct by other couples (other fertile heterosexual couples who may incorrectly interpret his narrow support as a right for their own contraception). He also stated that sexual abstinence is a sure way to avoid infection, but that condoms were only 50% safe against HIV transmission. ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) sluggishly condemned the cardinal's position, triggering clashes between the group and O'Connor.

In the former St. Clare's Hospital in Manhattan, the first of its kind in the state, early in the AIDS epidemic, O'Connor approved the opening of a special AIDS unit to provide medical care for the sick and dying. Many of whom were homosexual, he often nurtured and ministered to dying AIDS patients. Some representatives of ACT UP protested in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral, waving placards such as "Cardinal O'Connor Loves Gay People." If they are dying of AIDS, they are dying."

President Ronald Reagan appointed O'Connor to the President's Commission on the HIV Epidemic in 1987, also known as the Watkins Commission. O'Connor worked with 12 others, none of whom were AIDS specialists, including James D. Watkins, Richard DeVos, and Penny Pullen. HIV researchers and activists were initially miastised, with the commissioner's lack of experience and as a result of disarray. The Watkins Commission surprised several of its analysts by releasing a final report in 1988 that lent conservative support for antibias legislation to shield HIV-positive individuals, on-demand opioid therapy for heroin users, and the speed of HIV-related research. The New York Times praised the commission's "remarkable strides" and its proposed $2 billion fight against AIDS among drug users. The Watkins Commission's findings were similar to those produced by a committee of HIV experts commissioned by the National Academy of Sciences.

O'Connor was involved in the life of Theodore McCarrick, a well-known figure in the American hierarchy. McCarrick has been suspected of sexually assaulting seminarians for many years; McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals in 2018 and was chastised in 2019. Over the years, O'Connor became more skeptical of McCarrick.

O'Connor endorsed the appointment of McCarrick Archbishop of Newark in April 1986. Several anonymous letters accusing McCarrick of sexually assaulting seminarians were sent by him in 1992 and 1993, and he shared them with McCarrick. He requested an inquiry into allegations that McCarrick, then Archbishop of Newark, had engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with seminarians in 1994, which was regrettable for including Newark on a proposed papal visit to the United States.

Although two psychiatrists found a priest's accusation of sexual assault by McCarrick's credibility, O'Connor remained skeptical in October 1996, until he intervened to prevent a priest "too closely identified" with McCarrick from becoming an auxiliary bishop, citing a "uneasy climate of opinion concerning certain topics" in Newark.

O'Connor wrote a letter to the Apostolic Nuncio and the Congregation for Bishops in October 1999, a letter that Pope John Paul II read—that summarized the charges against McCarrick, particularly his persistently asking for seminarians and other men to share his bed. "I regret that I would have to write a lot against such promotion," O'Connor said. McCarrick learned about this letter from people in the Curia and in August 2000, just months after O'Connor's death, wrote a rebuttal that convinced John Paul II to appoint him archbishop of Washington.

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