Angelus News | March 24, 2023 | Vol. 8 No. 6

the shakers, and also with the moved
and shaken.” He was the friend who
showed up for a weekly dinner meeting
with a dog leash in one hand and his
Padre Pio rosary in the other as he
waited.
Above all, O’Connell’s friendship was
the embodiment of the phrase “Anam
Cara,” the Celtic concept of having a
friend of the soul.
“You’re blessed if you have a soul
friend,” said Cunnane, the pastor of
St. Cornelius Church in Long Beach.
“And I was blessed to have David. …
I was better for having known David
O’Connell. Many of you were too,
were you not?”
The burst of applause from the congregation
suggested that they had.
A man ‘seized by the Lord’
For Friday’s final farewell to LA’s
ultimate “peacemaker,” in the words
of Archbishop José H. Gomez, it was
befitting of O’Connell to see priests
attending along with parishioners.
Outside, a gaggle of nuns followed by
long, yellow school buses pulling up
to the curb to drop off more mourners
could be seen. Those who couldn’t
get a seat inside found places to stand.
Others chose to sit outside on the
Cathedral Plaza, using umbrellas as
shade. As the two-hour liturgy went on,
many continued to filter in, gravitating
toward the back end of the plaza,
simply wanting to be present.
Inside, Archbishop Gomez presided
a Mass with three cardinals — Roger
Mahony of LA, Blase Cupich of
Chicago, and Robert McElroy of San
Diego — as well as 34 bishops and
more than 75 priests at the altar.
The respect O’Connell enjoyed from
the interfaith community was also on
display, with delegates in attendance
representing Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist,
Sikh, Evangelical Lutheran, Mormon,
and Protestant faith traditions.
An ensemble choir with musicians
from St. Andrew and St. Philip churches
in Pasadena, St. Denis Church in
Diamond Bar, Sacred Heart Church
in Covina, St. Frances of Rome
Church in Azusa, St. Charles Borromeo
Church in North Hollywood, the
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels,
and Bishop Amat High School in La
Puente, provided music for many still
in shock about O’Connell’s death at
his home in Hacienda Heights on Feb.
18 at the age of 69.
At the start of the liturgy, Archbishop
Gomez said an opening prayer
and placed the Book of the Gospels
on O’Connell’s casket in the back of
the church. Then entered the bishops,
followed by O’Connell’s family,
processing as the words attributed to St.
Patrick echoed through the cathedral
in song: “Christ with me, Christ before
me, Christ behind me, Christ in me.”
After Communion, the choir sang
another Irish hymn, “Lady of Knock,”
to whom O’Connell had a lifelong
devotion: “Golden Rose, Queen of Ireland,
all my cares and troubles cease.
As we kneel with love before you, Lady
of Knock, my Queen of Peace.”
Other dignitaries at the funeral
included LAPD Chief Michel Moore,
former Los Angeles Mayors Eric Garcetti
and Jim Hahn, former LA County
Sheriff Jim McDonnell, LA County
Supervisor Janice Hahn, Los Angeles
District Attorney George Gascón, and
several other civic leaders who called
O’Connell a friend over the years.
Moore later told reporters that he met
then-Father O’Connell more than 20
years ago as a young LAPD captain in
the Rampart Division.
“He was plain-spoken, down to earth,
his heart was about the people. It was
also about our law enforcement, our
men and women who go out and make
the sacrifices they make. We don’t
always get it right, but he had a heart of
compassion and he worried about [the
officers] as much as he worried about
anyone else. That’s why he was such an
effective bridge-builder.”
Cunnane echoed that, saying in his
homily that O’Connell “wasn’t just my
good friend. Friendship is something
he was good at. He has friends young
and old, far and
wide … he has
friends up and
down the social
scale, at ease in
the corridors of
power and with
the powerless.”
In calling him
a man “gripped
by grace,”
Mourners stand in the back
of the cathedral during the
Friday morning funeral Mass
for Bishop O’Connell. Nearly
5,000 people attended the
funeral, including hundreds
who followed on a screen on
the Cathedral Plaza outside.
| JAY L. CLENDENIN/LA TIMES
Cunnane said O’Connell was “seized
by the Lord, like Jeremiah [who] said,
‘Lord, you seduced me, and I let myself
be seduced; you were stronger and
you triumphed.’
‘My heart wanted to see him’
After the Friday funeral Mass, O’Connell
was laid to rest in the cathedral
mausoleum, making him the second
bishop to be buried in the underground
crypt. The first was Bishop
John Ward, a longtime LA auxiliary
and one of the longest-surviving
March 24, 2023 • ANGELUS • 11