Mass in Remembrance of John Cardinal O’Connor
Dahlgren Chapel, Georgetown University
January 20, 2024
Introduction
It is a joy to offer this concluding Mass of the Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life. Clearly, he was a primary architect of the pro-life movement in the United States, an architect who helped lay its foundations, foundations we continue to build on. Your presence at this event, an event that has been going on now for 25 years, testifies that Cardinal O’Connor built this house on solid rock.
I’m fairly sure I was invited to offer this Mass because I’m one of the few bishops old enough to have met Cardinal O’Connor in person. And I was indeed blessed, to have met him and to have experienced something of his vision, courage, and humanity in the way he led the Church, not only in New York, but also nationally and globally.
Attainments
Cardinal O’Connor had an unusual background among the bishops. Some military chaplains become bishops but few can claim to be rear admirals. Cardinal O’Connor was a natural leader but his extensive military experience made him, in the best sense of the word, a commanding presence in the Church of the late 20th century. It’s also true that many bishops can claim expertise in fields other than theology, but few if any bishops attained a doctorate in political science, and he did so right here at Georgetown University, thus making him a Hoya.
After a short (7-month) stint as Bishop of Scranton (where he took the place by storm), he became, in 1984, the Archbishop of New York. From the start, New Yorkers knew they had a real mensch on their hands, an impactful leader, not only in church circles but in society at large … Not everyone approved. Soon after his appointment to New York, a Protestant military chaplain here in D.C. lamented to me: “What an awful thing, I mean O’Connor’s appointment to New York! He’s crazy!” … Well, they said the same thing about Jesus, didn’t they! Cardinal O’Connor wasn’t merely impactful. Nor was he crazy, not by any stretch of the imagination. He saw opportunity and need that others didn’t, and he acted boldly. He was providential. God sent the right leader at the right time.
Architect and the Builder
For John Cardinal O’Connor was not about attainments and honors but mission. And a mission at the heart of his personhood was the protection of the unborn – No one wrote and spoke more convincingly about the dignity of human life than he. His homilies from the pulpits of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan and the National Shrine here in Washington, D.C., as well as his columns in Catholic New York have stood the test of time. They are as relevant and prophetic today as they were when he delivered them.
Yet, as a leader, he knew that he needed to do more than speak and write. He was the first to offer help to any pregnant woman in distress – the first to offer spiritual, medical, and financial assistance so that they could bring their babies to term and then care for them after they had been born.
He also knew that the Church in the United States needed a plan, a framework, if it was to mobilize for the protection of the unborn. A lot of people claim expertise in strategic planning, but as a Rear Admiral, Cardinal O’Connor really knew how to do it. A lot of people claim to know what moves minds and hearts, but as a pastor and a student of politics, the Cardinal really knew how to ensure that people, including committed Catholics, would not grow weary of the fight, but would enlist in the struggle for the duration. Because he realized that the struggle for life and against abortion is an epic struggle that would have to be taken up by succeeding generations – namely, ourselves. So with the help of Gail Quinn, a bright woman and a no-nonsense New Yorker, a strategic plan was drafted, adopted by the bishops, and built on ever since… and that includes my stint as Chairman of the Bishops’ Pro-Life Activities Committee. We are truly standing on his shoulders, the shoulders of a giant.
Fatherhood
Yet, I would misrepresent John Cardinal O’Connor if I were to depict him solely as a genius with unique skills. Cardinal O’Connor was no one’s fool and did not suffer fools gladly, but he also combined courage with compassion, strength with personal warmth, and seriousness with a wonderfully wry sense of humor. In a city that never sleeps, Cardinal O’Connor was a shepherd who never slept. Yes, he would write his homilies and columns while others slept, but he would also make his way through hospital wards late at night, visiting a woman brutally raped in Central Park, consoling parents who had lost a child, sitting at the bedside of a dying priest… In the 80s, the early days of the AIDS crisis, Cardinal O’Connor was responsible for St. Clare’s Hospital opening up a special unit to care for dying AIDS patients. But for him, that wasn’t merely an executive decision or a grand gesture. No, the Cardinal himself, night after night, would visit and personally minister to more than 1,100 patients suffering from AIDS – all this far from the glare of the media and none of it for accolades.
He also knew the pro-life movement needed the involvement of women, women who would consecrate themselves to God and to the cause of life, women who would care for moms in need, help those who have had an abortion, and bear witness to the deep spirituality at the heart of the pro-life movement. Those women are, of course, the Sisters of Life whom he founded in 1991 – and how blessed we are that the Sisters of Life continue to flourish to this day!
What I’m aiming to say here is that Cardinal O’Connor was a true spiritual father after the mind and heart of Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, the Good Shepherd. He had a fatherly demeanor and bearing, a fatherly spirit, loving those he encountered just the way a natural father should love his children, listening to them, consoling them, challenging them, bringing out the best in them. It was spiritual fatherhood that animated him as he strove to secure legal protection for the unborn and help for mothers in distress. For him making abortion unthinkable was surely a cultural and political struggle, surely a communications challenge… but at base, it was more than any of those things: It was all about pastoral love. It was love without boundaries. Like his dear friend Mother Teresa, he “gave God permission” to work in him and through him in serving the defenseless and vulnerable. Thus, the Cardinal did on the world stage what any good and loving father would do: he loved those vulnerable children and extended to them a father’s care.
And Ourselves?
So, what would John Cardinal O’Connor say if he were with us today? I think he’d tell us to stop licking our wounds after the defeats suffered in states like Ohio and Kansas but to analyze them and learn from them. He’d tell us to stop complaining about politics and culture, but make them better, to usher in what Pope Francis calls “a new kind of politics”. He’d tell us to reject defeatism in all its forms. B. Instead, the Cardinal would tell us to get on our knees and pray for the cause of life. He would tell us to pray relentlessly, beseeching the Son of God who assumed our humanity, thus revealing most clearly God the Father’s love for us and the inviolable human dignity of each person. He would remind us that every person is made in God’s image and is deserving of protection and love at every stage of life and in every condition, from the moment of conception until natural death.
And just as he did in a homily he preached here at Georgetown in 1998, he would urge us “to give God permission” to work in and through us, making us the instruments of his truth and love and peace, enabling us to become impactful leaders in both Church and society. The Cardinal would challenge us to think long term, to tap into the expertise of good, smart people to figure out how to build on Dobbs, while touching the hearts and opening the minds of fellow Catholics, people of good will, and any who are contemplating an abortion. He would tell us not to reduce abortion to “an issue” but to approach it rather as a human tragedy that elicits from us all the love we can give.
Finally, he would tell us in the words of Pope St. Paul VI, “If you want peace, work for justice” … that was his episcopal motto. A society can be gauged by how it treats its most vulnerable members, and none is more vulnerable than the unborn – they have no voice but ours. A society that cherishes these tiny human beings and creates the social, political, and economic conditions in which they can be born and then grow and flourish … such a society will indeed find itself on the path to peace. May His Eminence rest in the peace of Christ. And may he pray for us from his place in eternity.