Hundreds Bid Their Farewells to O’Connor

Hundreds of mourners silently watched the start of a four-day farewell to Cardinal John O’Connor on Friday, the first day of services held at his beloved St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“His work is done, and now he’s home,” Bishop Patrick Sheridan, the cathedral’s vicar general, said during a special rite observing O’Connor’s final homecoming.

Organ music swelled and church bells rang as eight pallbearers carried the casket inside the grand cathedral where O’Connor conducted countless memorials for New York heroes both famous and obscure. The congregation sang a hymn, “Now From the Heavens Descending,” as the pallbearers--joined by a phalanx of priests, nuns and altar servers--slowly marched through the church.

The 40-minute service marked O’Connor’s return to the Manhattan church where he presided for 16 years as the nation’s highest-profile Roman Catholic. O’Connor, 80, died Wednesday night in his residence behind the cathedral after battling cancer for months.

“He held fast to the traditions handed to him,” said a teary Ralph Giordano, 23, who stood on the sidewalk opposite St. Patrick’s. “I trusted him for that reason.”

The cardinal’s dark wood coffin was carried through the ornate brass doors of the Fifth Avenue church, then brought up the aisle and placed at the front of the main altar.

A steady flow of mourners was soon marching past the open casket to bid a final goodbye to the late spiritual leader of the archdiocese’s 2.4 million faithful.

“I felt inspired and touched,” said Frank Zizzo of Levittown. “He looked incredibly at peace.”

On Friday night, a special Mass was celebrated by the cardinal’s former secretary, Bishop James McCarthy of the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish in Westchester County.

“Some have asked what will be his legacy,” McCarthy said. “May I suggest one: He saved lives--the lives of the unborn, the lives of the poor, the lives of those in war-torn nations.”

The cardinal’s body will be on view today and Sunday near his now empty chair--the official archbishop’s “cathedra.” The funeral Mass is scheduled for Monday afternoon.