In a Day of Prayer and Praise, New York Says Final Farewell to Cardinal

President Clinton, political leaders, princes of the church and close friends on Monday paid tribute to Cardinal John J. O’Connor with solemn prayers and joyful praise in St. Patrick’s Cathedral--the church he loved.

Beneath towering gray-stone arches, the funeral Mass focused on the clergyman whom many regarded as the nation’s point man for Pope John Paul II, but who preferred to call himself a simple parish priest.

“He did not shy away from the task of preacher,” said his good friend Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, who was with O’Connor when he died Wednesday at the age of 80 after a struggle with brain cancer. “He was to the core of his being a priest.

“God gifted him with a keen and subtle intellect, an uncommon rhetorical skill, a knack for the dramatic gesture, a sharp wit and an outrageous sense of humor,” Law added, “all of which he used in the service of preaching.”

In an emotional homily with political overtones, Law picked up the anti-abortion theme that O’Connor sounded from his pulpit here for 16 years.

“What a great legacy he has left us in the constant reminder that the church must be unambiguously pro-life,” Law stressed.

Thunderous applause from most of the 3,500 invited mourners filled the massive cathedral, sweeping over those who support abortion rights.

Among those in attendance were 120 bishops, 15 cardinals, former President Bush, presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush and New York Senate contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rudolph W. Giuliani. And hundreds more stood behind police barricades outside St. Patrick’s on Fifth Avenue in the 90-plus-degree heat, listening to the Mass over loudspeakers.

“I stood right here when he did his inaugural Mass, and I just had to come back,” said Mike Kearns, who made the sign of the cross and said a small prayer. “When I stood here and listened to that Mass, it brought tears to my eyes.”

O’Connor, who had helped plan his own funeral, selected many of the prayers and hymns.

It began with a 45-minute processional of more than 1,000 members of the clergy, members of the Knights of Columbus and other Catholic groups. Bishop Edward Egan of Bridgeport, Conn., was among those who attended.

The 68-year-old clergyman is perceived as the leading candidate to replace O’Connor as spiritual leader of 2.4 million Catholics in the nation’s wealthiest and most influential archdiocese.

In February, O’Connor made a final journey to Rome to say goodbye to John Paul. In deference to his good friend, the pope has waited to name the cardinal’s successor.

As they strode down the center aisle of St. Patrick’s, many of the priests wore vestments that had been specially made for the pope’s visit to New York in 1995.

As Clinton, Vice President Gore and their wives watched only a few feet away, each of the priests gently placed a hand on the cardinal’s coffin, which was draped with a white linen cloth. A small cross from O’Connor’s bedroom in the archdiocese rested on the casket.

Poignantly, Law spoke of the strength that the cardinal drew from his deep faith during his last days.

“Just a few weeks ago at a visit to his home, we celebrated Mass,” he told the audience. “It was for him, so clearly, the highlight of that day.”

Law explained that O’Connor’s illness had progressed to the point where it was impossible for him to read, and his ability to carry on a sustained conversation was impaired.

But with “strength and conviction” he still was able from memory to recite prayer.

“He was a man of profound and uncomplicated faith in a good and gracious God,” the cardinal added. As death neared, O’Connor “saw himself in solidarity with other cancer patients,” Law said.

O’Connor’s friend said that on that last evening, when it became clear death soon would come, “his family, his closest collaborators, his friends began the church’s prayers for the dying.”

“In the midst of these prayers, there was a moment of profound grief as each of us realized with a sudden clarity what was happening. Suddenly, we realized our tears were not for him but for ourselves.”

As the service drew to a close, applause once again rang through the cathedral as O’Connor’s dark wood coffin was carried by pallbearers to a crypt beneath the altar.

Final prayers were said in the crypt, containing the bodies of the previous archbishops of New York.

O’Connor’s coffin was placed near that of Pierre Toussaint, a 19th century Haitian whose cause for sainthood the cardinal had supported.

Cardinal William Baum, the American prelate who now heads the Apostolic Penitentiary in Rome, told those assembled in the church that when O’Connor had spoken of his funeral, he “demanded, not just requested, demanded we must pray for him.”

Amid the prayers, hymns and memories on Monday, there also were political considerations.

Catholics are a major voting bloc in New York. Nationally, Catholic voters constituted almost one-third of those casting ballots in the 1996 presidential election.

“It would have been an issue if someone were not to attend” O’Connor’s Mass, said Kieran Mahoney, a New York Republican strategist.

George W. Bush, for example, delayed an intended speech on Social Security reform in order to pay his respects. After the bitter Republican primary in South Carolina, Bush had apologized to O’Connor for visiting Bob Jones University and failing to repudiate its history of anti-Catholic teachings.

“From a political perspective,” Mahoney emphasized, “you ought to be there.”

Times staff writers Mark Z. Barabak, Edwin Chen and researcher Lynette Ferdinand contributed to this story.