Free Republic

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Cardinal John J. O'Connor, who as archbishop of New York cultivated and cherished his strong ties with the Jewish community, was born of a mother who was born Jewish. It is not known whether he knew that his mother, Dorothy Gumple O'Connor, was born Jewish. She converted to Catholicism before she met and married Thomas O'Connor, the late cardinal's father. Mary O'Connor Ward, the cardinal's sister, told Catholic New York, newspaper of the New York Archdiocese, that her mother never spoke about having belonged to another faith. The fact that Dorothy O'Connor was Jewish by birth...