'A Great Ride'

On the day he turned 75, Jan. 15, 1995, Cardinal O'Connor dutifully offered his resignation to Pope John Paul II, following Church law on bishops' retirement age.

He was placing himself entirely in the pope's hands, he said at the time, and would be happy to leave if that's what the pope wanted--but he'd be just as happy to stay.

"I'm very serene about what will happen next," he said. "I don't have the slightest idea what it will be."

Two months later, after marching in the St. Patrick's Day Parade as its grand marshal, he found out. His resignation was not accepted, and the pope was inviting him to continue as archbishop "until other provisions are made."

Those familiar with Vatican nuance understood that to mean he was granted a lengthy extension to lead the New York Archdiocese--maybe for as long as five more years.

The news gave him the sense of starting a new life as Archbishop of New York, with all of the excitement of "starting over."

"I would have to say," he told CNY, "that I'm grateful that the Holy Father made the decision that I stay."

In recent months, however, with his 80th birthday approaching and his health uncertain, the cardinal began speaking much more openly about retirement, clearly expecting that his heady 15-year tenure as Archbishop of New York would soon end.

"It's been a great ride," he wrote in a letter to his fellow American bishops at their annual meeting in November.

It was a letter many of the bishops took as a poignant farewell from a towering and influential Church leader who also has been, for a long time, a friend.

On Jan. 31, 1984, Cardinal O'Connor was Bishop of Scranton, Pa., when he was named by the pope to become the eighth Archbishop of New York, successor to the late Cardinal Terence Cooke.

Retired from 27 years as a Navy and Marine Corps chaplain, including four years as Chief of Chaplains with the rank of rear admiral, he was only seven months in Scranton when he was called to come to New York.

He was installed as archbishop on March 19, 1984, five months after the death of Cardinal Cooke. He was elevated to the rank of cardinal on May 25, 1985, in Rome.

Asked by a reporter whether he'd have more power as a cardinal, he replied that the answer depends on one's definition of power.

"Any exercise of power not spiritual would be fraudulent," he remarked. "If it increases my spiritual power, that's fine."

A disciplined and energetic leader with a quick wit, Cardinal O'Connor has been known for his strong pro-life record and an orthodox approach to issues that was in line with the pope's vision of the Church.

He was said to have been specially chosen by the pope to redirect the Church in the United States away from a liberal drift, reinforcing traditional Church teaching and practice, interpreting and clarifying the spirit of Vatican Council II.

As spiritual leader of 2.3 million Catholics in the 10-county archdiocese with 413 parishes and 293 schools, the new archbishop plunged headlong into his role.

Right away, he was a part of the New York scene. Newspapers ran pictures of him ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange, taking the wheel of the Staten Island ferry, in the center ring of the circus at Madison Square Garden--obviously enjoying himself.

As outspoken as he was outgoing, he wasted no time in establishing to his new flock--and to a breathless press corps--his priorities as their spiritual leader. Chief among them, he said, was his unyielding commitment to the defense of human life, "especially the life of the unborn."

From his highly visible New York See, he insisted that the Church's voice be a part of the public debate, and his has often been that voice, whether by speaking out or writing on issues of the day or by giving witness to the values espoused in Catholic teachings.

For that, he made headlines often and soon became a favorite target of those critical of the Church or opposed to its teachings, especially on matters of sexual morality. Accepting the inevitable, he often said, "That goes with the territory."

He didn't sidestep controversy and, sometimes, seemed to invite it. Once, for instance, he threatened to remove Catholic child care agencies from New York City's foster care programs if they were required to provide birth control counseling to children in group homes.

Another instance, still talked about, came early on, in June 1984, when he said, "I do not see how a Catholic could, in conscience, vote for an individual who explicitly expresses himself or herself as favoring abortion."

The remark, and its escalating reverberations, challenged the political stands of two New York politicians at the time, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, both Catholics.

He has relished the role of pastor, tirelessly visiting parishes in the archdiocese for anniversaries, dedications and other events important to the lives of the people--his parishioners.

He has been dedicated also to his position as teacher, offering insight and guidance through his Sunday homilies, his columns in Catholic New York and pastoral letters and in the speeches and addresses delivered in the archdiocese and around the country.

The centrality of the Mass--the Eucharist--has been a persistent theme of his preaching and writing, demonstrated by his revival of the Corpus Christi procession in parishes and led by him on the streets around the cathedral.

He took the message and the compassion of the Church around the world, to places such as Ethiopia where he visited camps run by Catholic agencies to care for masses of famine victims in 1988, and to a Eucharistic Congress in the Philippines the year before that where, as the special representative of the pope, he celebrated Mass before 1 million people.

His relationship with the pope has been strong and warm. They had frequent meetings at the Vatican, where the cardinal has served on a number of key committees including the Congregation of Bishops, an influential body which approves appointments of bishops worldwide.

In October 1995, he welcomed the pope to the archdiocese, a visit that was a stunning success for John Paul, who addressed the United Nations, celebrated Mass in Central Park and generally charmed New Yorkers.

The cardinal has demonstrated a deep commitment to racial justice with initiatives such as the interfaith prayer service for racial healing after the Amadou Diallo police shooting. He also has reached out to New York's large Jewish community, giving assurances early on that he backed the establishment of diplomatic ties between the Vatican and Israel. When relations were eventually established in 1994, he was given a large part of the credit for bringing it about.

Dedicated to protecting the rights of immigrants, he announced at his annual Labor Mass in September--his first public appearance after his brain surgery--a new archdiocesan aid-to-immigrants program.

The project, he said, demonstrates once again that "the hopes and sorrows of immigrants are the concern of the entire Church in New York."

The immigrant project, a joint venture with New York City's Central Labor Council, underscored also his support for the labor movement. He proudly declared himself a friend of unions, and offered or was asked numerous times to meet with one or both sides in labor-management disputes in the city.

In 1990, for example, he brought New York Post union and management officials together for a meeting at his residence in an 11th-hour intervention that helped the sides hammer out a deal to keep the newspaper alive.

In 1985, he said he was prepared to have Catholic hospitals and nursing homes break with the League of Voluntary Hospitals to settle a back pay dispute with health care workers. And as recently as last spring, he asked Wall Street executives to hire only limousine firms that have signed labor contracts with their drivers. The move was credited with helping some of the city's 11,000 black-car limousine drivers unionize.

Again and again he has appealed on behalf of the poor, the homeless, the sick. When the AIDS epidemic raged in the mid-1980s, he spearheaded the opening in St. Clare's Hospital of the state's first AIDS-only unit, where he later spent hours visiting patients and tending to their needs as a hands-on volunteer.

Catholic schools in the archdiocese, many of them struggling financially, came under his protective wing. He saw them as a priceless resource for inner-city children with few educational options and directed that there be no wholesale closings, even of schools where a majority of the students were not Catholic.

Deeply committed to the cause of life, the cardinal has preached often on abortion and entwined it as a theme even in his homilies and addresses on seemingly unrelated topics.

The right-to-life movement's embroidered rose symbol has a permanent spot on his lapel. He attended the March for Life each year in Washington, D.C., pledged archdiocesan resources to help poor women facing problem pregnancies and released a major paper on the Church's teachings on abortion.

He established the Sisters of Life under his sponsorship in 1991 as a religious congregation of women dedicated to prayer and activities in the cause of life. Since its start, the congregation has been close to his heart, and he has looked forward to spending more time with its members in retirement.

The congregation has "given me a new lease on life," he told CNY in 1994.

New right-to-life issues continued, however, to spring up in his years as archbishop--assisted suicide and partial-birth abortion debates nationwide and the restoration of the death penalty in New York state--causing him to reflect often on the "culture of death" that seemed to be overtaking the land.

Looking at highs and lows of his priesthood on his 10-year anniversary as archbishop, he mentioned as a low point the Dec. 10, 1989, desecration of the Blessed Sacrament and disruption of Mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral by AIDS and abortion activists.

"That was, for me as a priest and a bishop, a terrible, terrible thing," he said.

Asked about high points, he said, "This job is filled with highlights."

John Joseph O'Connor was born Jan. 15, 1920, and raised in a small row house in southwest Philadelphia. He was the fourth of five children of Mary Gomple O'Connor and Thomas J. O'Connor, a craftsman skilled in goldleafing who instilled in his youngest son a respect for working people and a no-nonsense approach to religion.

Young John O'Connor attended public elementary and junior high schools before entering Philadelphia's West Catholic High School for Boys, where he said the De LaSalle Christian Brothers helped foster his vocation.

Missionary life appealed to him as a youth, and he approached his parish priest about his dream of becoming a Holy Ghost Father serving in Africa or a Maryknoll priest in China.

The answer he got was blunt: "If you want to be a priest, be a priest in Philadelphia."

So that's what he did, entering St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in 1936. His excellent grades and extracurricular activities made him a candidate to complete his studies for the priesthood at the North American College, the seminary in Rome sponsored by the U.S. bishops.

But the Italian government ordered it closed during World War II, so he finished his studies in Philadelphia and was ordained in the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul on Dec. 15, 1945, a month before his 26th birthday.

As his first assignment after ordination, he was a high school teacher and guidance counselor while in residence at a local parish, where he assisted weekends. He also conducted a 15-minute Catholic news radio program on Sundays and began a ministry to retarded children which he considered pursuing permanently.

But in 1952, with the Korean War heating up, the young priest was asked by his bishop to sign up for the military chaplaincy--a request that was to influence his priestly ministry for almost three decades.

Serving in the Navy and Marine Corps, he began a distinguished career as a chaplain which included service with combat troops in Vietnam, chaplain to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis and finally, as a rear admiral, rising to Navy Chief of Chaplains. He retired in May 1979 after 27 years.

That same month, he was ordained a bishop and assigned to the Military Ordinariate, then based in Manhattan and headed by Cardinal Cooke, who became his friend and mentor. During that time, he was on the drafting committee of the U.S. bishops' war and peace pastoral, "The Challenge of Peace."

He was with the Military Ordinariate (now the Archdiocese for the Military Services, US.A.) for five years and was its vicar general when his Scranton appointment was announced.

As New York's archbishop, Cardinal O'Connor has ordained 181 priests and seen the Catholic population of the archdiocese rise from 1.8 million when he arrived to the 2.3 million it is today.

One of his most ambitious early initiatives was an archdiocesan synod that would bring together priests, religious and laity to map out plans for the Church in New York in the next century. The synod, held in 1988, was the first in the archdiocese since 1950.

Youth of the archdiocese were the focus of a weekend rally called Young New York '94, which the cardinal planned as a way to keep alive the spirit of the pope's World Youth Day celebration in Denver the previous summer. Billed as a "festival of faith," it attracted some 25,000 people to St. Joseph's Seminary in Dunwoodie, where he called on the gathered teens to be "the candle of Christ, the light of the world."

Cardinal O'Connor has treasured St. Patrick's Cathedral, envisioning it as a unifying force for New York's Catholics scattered over great distances and frequently inviting groups such as high school students, married couples, the elderly or disabled to Masses and other events tailored toward their concerns. Expressing his concern for Hispanics and New Yorkers of other ethnic backgrounds, he has repeatedly stated at their special liturgies, "This is your cathedral."

The 10:15 a.m. Sunday Mass at the cathedral has been the highlight of his week, and he's set aside as much as eight hours beforehand to research and write his homilies, which he has used to address national or local issues ranging from New York City's rent control laws to the Kosovo refugee crisis as well as spiritual concerns.

When the new Catechism of the Catholic Church was published, he reflected on it in his homilies for a full year, section by section, beginning with the First Sunday of Advent in 1993.

He has worked closely with his vicar general, Auxiliary Bishop Patrick J. Sheridan, 77, whom he tapped for the post three years after becoming archbishop. The vicar general was ordained a bishop in 1990.

Other bishops ordained in the archdiocese during the cardinal's tenure are: Edwin F. O'Brien, Archbishop of the Military Archdiocese, U.S.A.; Henry J. Mansell, Bishop of Buffalo; William J. McCormack, national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith; Robert A. Brucato, vicar general, and James F. McCarthy, the cardinal's secretary for 12 years and now the vicar of Northern Westchester and Putnam and pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in Shrub Oak.

He also was a co-consecrator at the 1988 ordination of a popular Franciscan priest, Bishop Roberto O. Gonzalez Nieves, O.F.M., who was pastor of Holy Cross parish in the Bronx when he was appointed an auxiliary bishop of the Boston Archdiocese. He is now Archbishop of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Among the trips the cardinal made in his years as archbishop were a 1998 visit to Cuba, accompanying the pope on his historic journey. In earlier years he traveled to Israel, Jordan and Lebanon in the Middle East; Costa Rica; Haiti and the Dominican Republic; Spain, Portugal, Albania, Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iceland, Australia, and Argentina. At least once a month he went to Rome for meetings.

He introduced the sainthood cause of his predecessor, Cardinal Cooke, and revived a cause that had languished for many years: that of Venerable Pierre Toussaint, the 19th-century Haitian-born New Yorker known for his charitable works.

More recently, he said he was considering introducing the cause of the pacifist Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. And just a few months ago, he approved the initiation by an Illinois group of the cause of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, the pioneering television preacher who spent most of his priesthood living and working in New York.

In the cardinal's 15 years in New York, Catholic institutions faced financial and other pressures along with their secular counterparts. To adjust, the cardinal oversaw an extensive survey of archdiocesan properties to determine their physical shape; and he approved plans for the hospitals, nursing homes and other health care agencies to band together into the Catholic Health Care Network, forerunner to the Catholic Health Care System.

He has worked hard to promote vocations and demonstrated deep concern for the well-being of the priests serving the archdiocese. He helped them weather several sex scandals involving priests in the early 1990s, and in 1997 he appointed Bishop Brucato to a two-year assignment as vicar for pastoral guidance, a post created as a resource for priests in whatever challenges and concerns they face.

An early riser, the cardinal celebrated weekday morning Masses at 7:30 a.m. in the cathedral. Typically, that was followed by breakfast with the bishops and priests who share his residence and, frequently, invited guests from the worlds of politics, business and the arts as well as civic and charity leaders.

Then, if there was a funeral to attend--he rarely missed a priest's funeral--that would be his next stop. If not, he usually would report to his office in the New York Catholic Center where he would work all day, at meetings and at his desk--unless there was a parish to visit, a sick person in the hospital to see or a meeting or dedication ceremony elsewhere.

Evenings often meant an appearance at a reception or dinner for a charitable organization.

Weekends were more of the same, except without the office work and with more visits to parish events.

It has been a full and grueling schedule, especially when combined with his travels.

Now 80, and having been slowed down considerably in recent months by surgery to remove a brain tumor and weeks of radiation therapy, it would be no surprise if the cardinal were looking forward to a quiet, restful time in retirement.

And that may very well be his sentiment. But, understandably, there also is much that he will miss.

He made that clear a few weeks ago on the Sunday before Christmas when, rejecting the advice of aides who wanted him to save his strength, he insisted on celebrating Mass and preaching in St. Patrick's Cathedral after an absence of two weeks.

"They urged that I not celebrate this Mass," he remarked, a smile on his face as he addressed the overflow congregation in the cathedral adorned with Christmas wreaths and greenery.

"But my answer to that is I cannot not have Mass with you," he said. "I love you too much."