John Joseph O'Connor - Legacy

Legacy

Cardinal O'Connor was posthumously awarded the Jackie Robinson Empire State Medal of Freedom by New York Governor George Pataki on December 21, 2000. On March 7, 2000 O'Connor was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by unanimous support in the United States Senate and only one vote against the resolution in the United States House of Representatives.

O'Connor was an object of scorn and ridicule in ACT UP's demonstrations, the most prominent of which was a protest that disrupted Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral on December 10, 1989. Michael Petrelis, a founding member of ACT UP, was arrested along with 110 others, including 43 inside the church, some of whom had chained themselves to pews, shouted or lay in aisles. Later, he indicated that the group "came to St. Patrick's in 1989 to repel the church's destructive intrusion into public policies concerning AIDS, gay civil rights and women's reproductive rights." O'Connor responded during the benediction at the interrupted Mass, "I must preach what the church preaches, teach what the church teaches."

The strong feelings that Cardinal O'Connor's campaigning against gay civil rights inspired were evoked at his death, when Time Out New York, a weekly city entertainment guide, expressed relief at his death, calling it one of the best things to happen to the gay community in 2000, saying "The press eulogized him as a saint, when in fact, the pious creep was a stuck-in-the-1950s anti-gay menace. Good riddance!". The resulting cries of outrage forced the magazine to apologize for the insensitive tone of the statement, but Time Out New York stood by its view that the Cardinal was an "impediment to gay and lesbian progress. Carmen Vázquez, a spokeswoman for the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, opined that Cardinal O’Connor had "made the lives of gays and lesbians miserable with his public comments and opposition to their way of life." Jeff Stone, a spokesman for DignityUSA, recalled the group's twice-annual meetings with O'Connor: "We acknowledged that we had theological disagreements, so we tried to talk about areas where we thought we had some common ground—such as violence against gay people," and added, "We are saddened by his death."

To honor his distinguished service as a US Navy chaplain, the Catholic Center at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, is named the O'Connor Center. The largest student run pro-life conference in the U.S. is named in his honor. It is held every year at Georgetown University the day before the annual March for Life.