John O'Connor (cardinal) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids His Eminence John O'Connor |
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| Cardinal, Archbishop of New York | |
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| See | Archdiocese of New York |
| Appointed | January 26, 1984 |
| Enthroned | March 19, 1984 |
| Reign ended | May 3, 2000 |
| Predecessor | Terence Cooke |
| Successor | Edward Egan |
| Other posts | Cardinal-Priest of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | December 15, 1945 |
| Consecration | May 27, 1979 by John Paul II |
| Created Cardinal | May 25, 1985 |
| Rank | Cardinal Priest |
| Personal details | |
| Born | January 15, 1920 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US |
| Died | May 3, 2000 (aged 80) New York City, New York, US |
| Buried | St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York, New York, US |
| Denomination | Roman Catholicism |
| Parents | Thomas J. O'Connor & Dorothy Magdalene Gomple |
| Previous post |
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| Alma mater |
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| Motto | There Can Be No Love Without Justice |
John Joseph O'Connor (January 15, 1920 – May 3, 2000) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York from 1984 until his death in 2000, and was made a cardinal in 1985.
O'Connor previously served as a U.S. Navy chaplain (1952 to 1979), including four years as chief of chaplains, as an auxiliary bishop of the Military Vicariate of the United States (1979 to 1983), and as bishop of the Diocese of Scranton in Pennsylvania (1983 to 1984).
Contents
Biography
Early life
John O'Connor was born in Philadelphia on January 15, 1920, the fourth of five children of Thomas J. O'Connor, and Dorothy Magdalene (née Gomple) O'Connor. Thomas was a painter and Dorothy was the daughter of Gustave Gumpel, a kosher butcher and Jewish rabbi. In 2014, it was discovered that Dorothy was baptized a Catholic at age 19 and that the couple wed one year later.
O'Connor attended public schools in Philadelphia until his junior year of high school, when he enrolled in West Philadelphia Catholic High School for Boys. Having decided to become a priest, he then enrolled at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania.
Priesthood
After graduating from St. Charles, O'Connor was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia on December 15, 1945, in Philadelphia by Auxiliary Bishop Hugh L. Lamb. After his 1945 ordination, the archdiocese assigned O'Connor as a faculty member at St. James High School in Chester, Pennsylvania. During this seven-year period, O'Connor obtained a Master of Arts degree in advanced ethics from Villanova University in Philadelphia and a Master of Arts degree in clinical psychology from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
O'Connor joined the United States Navy Chaplain Corps in 1952 during the Korean War.He was eventually named rear admiral and chief of chaplains of the Navy in 1975.He obtained approval for the establishment of the RP [Religious Program Specialist] Enlisted Rating, and oversaw the process of standing up this rating. The RP rating provided chaplains with a dedicated enlisted community. The Vatican named O'Connor as an honorary prelate of his holiness on October 27, 1966.
O'Connor received a doctorate in political science from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he studied under future United Nations ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick said of O'Connor that he was "... surely one of the two or three smartest graduate students I've ever had."
Auxiliary Bishop of the Military Vicariate US
On April 24, 1979, Pope John Paul II appointed O'Connor as an auxiliary bishop of the Military Vicariate for the United States and titular bishop of Cursola. He was consecrated to the episcopate on May 27, 1979, at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome by John Paul himself, with Cardinals Duraisamy Lourdusamy and Eduardo Somalo acting as co-consecrators.
Bishop of Scranton
On May 6, 1983, John Paul II named O'Connor as bishop of Scranton; he was installed in that position on June 29, 1983.
Archbishop of New York
| Styles of John O'Connor |
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| Reference style | His Eminence |
| Spoken style | Your Eminence |
| Informal style | Cardinal |
| See | New York |
On January 26, 1984, after the death of Cardinal Terence Cooke, O'Connor was appointed archbishop of New York and administrator of the Military Vicariate by John Paul II; O'Connor was installed on March 19, 1984.
O'Connor was elevated to cardinal in the May 25, 1985, consistory, with the titular church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Rome (the traditional one for the Archbishop of New York from 1946 to 2009).
Illness and death
When O'Connor reached the retirement age for bishops of 75 years in January 1995, he submitted his resignation to Pope John Paul II as required by canon law. However the pope did not accept the resignation. O'Connor was diagnosed in 1999 with a brain tumor. He continued to serve as Archbishop of New York until his death.
O'Connor died in the archbishop's residence in Manhattan on May 3, 2000. He was interred in the crypt beneath the main altar of St. Patrick's Cathedral. His funeral was presided over by Cardinal Secretary of State Angelo Sodano. At O'Connor's request, Cardinal Bernard F. Law delivered the homily and Cardinal William W. Baum the eulogy.Attendees at O'Connor's funeral included:
- Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan
- US President Bill Clinton, First Lady Hillary Clinton and Vice President Al Gore
- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
- former President George H. W. Bush and Texas Governor George W. Bush
- New York Governor George Pataki
- New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former New York City Mayors Ed Koch and David Dinkins.
Legacy
- The John Cardinal O'Connor Pavilion in the Bronx, a residence for retired priests, opened in 2003.
- The John Cardinal O'Connor School in Irvington, New York, for students with learning differences, opened in 2009.
- The Cardinal O'Connor Conference on Life is held annually at Georgetown University.
The New York Times called O'Connor "a familiar and towering presence, a leader whose views and personality were forcefully injected into the great civic debates of his time, a man who considered himself a conciliator, but who never hesitated to be a combatant", and one of the Catholic Church's "most powerful symbols on moral and political issues."
According to New York City Mayor Ed Koch: "Cardinal O'Connor was a great man, but he was like the Pentagon. He was incapable of saving money."
Awards
- Jackie Robinson Empire State Medal of Freedom – December 21, 2000
- Congressional Gold Medal – March 7, 2000
McCarrick learned about O'Connor's letter from contacts in the Curia. In August 2000, several months after O'Connor's death, McCarrick sent a rebuttal to John Paul II, which allegedly convinced the pope to appoint him archbishop of Washington. McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals in 2018 and was laicized in 2019.
