Cardinal John Joseph O’Connor: Born to Serve |
Cardinal John Joseph O’Connor’s vocation to serve the spiritual needs of God’s children—in war and in peace, in life and in death—has left a legacy that transcends the bounds of today’s narrow, irreligious politics.
John Joseph O’Connor was born in 1920 in the great American city of Philadelphia to an Irish Catholic father and a Catholic-convert mother of German Jewish descent.
The future prelate’s passion for the Catholic Church and thirst for knowledge was apparent at a young age.
O’Connor had already determined he wanted to be a priest upon graduating from West Philadelphia Catholic High School for Boys and enrolled at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary. He subsequently received advanced degrees from Villanova and the Catholic University of America before completing a doctorate in political science at Georgetown University.
At Georgetown, O’Connor studied under President Ronald Reagan’s former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Jeane Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick, declared O’Connor, “surely one of the two or three smartest graduate students I’ve ever had.”
Every year, Georgetown hosts the Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life, which takes place around the March for Life and features philosophers, civic leaders, and distinguished clergy that make the case for the dignity of human life from conception to natural death.
O’Connor answered the call to serve in the military and provide for the........