O'Connell, William Henry, 1859-1944

William Henry O'Connell was born on December 8, 1859 in Lowell, Massachusetts, the youngest of eleven children of John O'Connell and Brigid Farley. He became interested in art and music as a child, and continued painting watercolors and playing piano throughout his life. He entered the College of St. Charles in Maryland in 1876, where he became a pupil of John Bannister Tabb. He returned to Boston a few years later, and graduated from Boston College in 1881. That same year, O'Connell left to study at the North American College in Rome. He was ordained a priest in 1884, but was unable to complete his doctor of divinity degree due to a serious illness. He returned to Massachusetts, and spent 1884-1893 as a parish priest in Lowell and Boston. In 1893, he was appointed Rector of the North American College, and moved back to Rome. In May 1901, O'Connell was consecrated bishop of Portland, Maine, and returned to the United States, but retained close connections with his colleagues in the Vatican. Pope Pius X appointed him papal envoy to the Emperor of Japan, and his success in working with the Japanese encouraged his appointment, in 1906, as Coadjutor Archbishop of Boston, with the right of succession. He succeeded John Williams as Archbishop of Boston in 1907, and continued in that position until his death in 1944. His term as archbishop was marked by reform and centralization of diocesan affairs, and by strong stances on topics such as Hollywood and radio crooners, Einstein's theories, euthanasia, gender expression, and birth control, about which he argued both within the Catholic Church and in secular government. For his influence, he was given the nickname "Number One." He was elected a cardinal in 1911, at only fifty-one years of age. Due to travel delays crossing the Atlantic, O'Connell arrived too late to attend the papal conclaves in 1914 (Benedict XV) and 1922 (Pius XI), but was able to attend the conclave in 1939, which elected Pope Pius XII. O'Connell died on April 22, 1944 of pneumonia at the archbishop's residence in Brighton, Massachusetts.