The Nation - News from Oct. 19, 1987

Cardinal John J. O’Connor, a member of President Reagan’s AIDS commission, told thousands of worshipers attending Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral that he would not quit the panel and would relay to it the concerns of patients dying of the disease. O’Connor, who heads the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New York, had in recent days expressed doubts about his participation on the President’s much-criticized Commission on Human Immuno-deficiency Virus Epidemic, but rejected calls from the gay community to quit. Meanwhile, leaders of the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights held a news conference on the cathedral’s steps urging O’Connor to resign.