Published in the December 8, 2016 edition
By BILL LaFORME
NORTH READING – Bishop Mark O’Connell has had a busy 2016, having become pastor at St. Theresa Parish in North Reading while also being elevated to the rank of bishop and serving as a judicial vicar in canon law for the Archdiocese of Boston.
Among these varying job descriptions, O’Connell is also undertaking a very specific mission – to try to encourage more lapsed Catholics to re–join the fold.
This Tuesday, Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. at St. Theresa (63 Winter St.), the bishop will lead a meeting for non-Catholics and those who are confused about the faith or fallen away from it entirely – or who would simply like to join the conversation. In a recent conversation with the Transcript, said that he sees the event as an opportunity for people to have “a nonjudgmental conversation with a bishop.” He added he is “uniquely qualified” to answer many of the questions that may come up, given his experience in canon law as well as his recently attained bishop rank.
If people turn out for the meeting and it is a success, the bishop indicated that it would likely be duplicated elsewhere in the region as well.
Bishop O’Connell said that it’s rare, but not completely unheard of, for a Catholic bishop to also serve as a church pastor. He is the first bishop to take on this added role in the Boston area, although he added that a parish in Wayland has a similar arrangement. In some ways, this reflects the church’s ongoing struggle with recruiting sufficient numbers of new priests – although O’Connell noted in passing that the seminary in Boston had recently needed to acquire new space to accommodate an upsurge in future priests. “I don’t see it as temporary,” said Bishop O’Connell of bishops also serving as pastors.
Notwithstanding the accomplishment of his recent elevation, Bishop O’Connell said that becoming a parish priest had especially been one of his longtime goals. “I was happy that my life’s goal has finally arrived, albeit under weird circumstances,” said Bishop O’Connell, also noting that he had become both a bishop and the pastor at St. Theresa on Aug. 24. He was ordained as a priest on June 16, 1990, serving at St. Barbara Parish in Woburn and St. Mary of the Annunciation in Danvers along the way, as well as at Salem State as a part–time campus minister. Bishop O’Connell also graduated from Boston College in 1986.
The vetting process that resulted in the elevation to bishop began at the local level before moving on to a Vatican envoy called a nuncio and the Congregation for Bishops in Rome before final approval from the Pope. Soon after these steps, Bishop O’Connell spent nine days in Rome at an annual “bishop school” with 250 other new bishops from around the world, with 13 other Americans in the group.
As regional bishop of the north region of Boston, Bishop O’Connell supervises 61 parishes. Before this new role emerged however, O’Connell was a much more familiar presence in the church’s matters of canon law, a subject in which he holds a doctorate and which he has worked on for the Archdiocese since 2001.
For those who work in the area of canon law, routine duties may include things like marriage annulments. At one point, O’Connell was a prosecutor in the priest sex abuse cases. The bishop’s work in canon law can also occasionally involve investigations as to whether a person should be made a saint. For example, Cardinal O’Connell said he helped investigate a reported miracle that was credited to 19th Century British Cardinal John Henry Newman, who was beatified by Pope Benedict in 2010 as part of an ongoing effort to see him canonized as a saint.
For all the roles he plays within the church, Bishop O’Connell said that he personally considers himself drawn to the evangelization of former Catholics and that he will continue reaching out to this population in the future. With this in mind, the Bishop said he has even taken on the motto, “We have found the Messiah,” referring to the biblical moment when the apostles Andrew and Simon first met Jesus.
Despite trends like an increase in the number of priest vocations, Bishop O’Connell said that in general, “we have an awful lot of work to do” when it comes to getting younger Catholics to re-engage with the faith. He added that “there is still a long way to go” with rebuilding the priest population, despite the previously mentioned upturn in seminary enrollments.
To learn more about Bishop Mark O’Connell, follow him on Twitter at @rfkram.
