![]() ![]() He and other local faith leaders helped organize meetings with police officers in people’s homes and provide opportunities for dialogue and reconciliation.Īs a pastor, O'Connell also saw firsthand the effect of broken families on the community. He came home days later to find widespread destruction in much of his parish's territory.Īpart from aiding neighborhood recovery efforts, O'Connell pushed to restore trust between the inner-city residents and law enforcement. Bishop O'Connell would later tell how he was in Washington, testifying before a panel on Capitol Hill about violence in urban America, when the riots started. There, O'Connell ministered to a community afflicted by gang violence, poverty, broken families, as well as tensions between locals and members of Los Angeles Police Department and the LA Sheriff’s Department that eventually boiled over during the LA riots in 1992 that followed the beating of Rodney King by police officers. Michael’s parishes - all in south Los Angeles. After ordination, he served as associate pastor in several parishes and as pastor at St. ![]() "May Our Lady of Guadalupe wrap him in the mantle of her love, and may the angels lead him into paradise, and may he rest in peace," said the archbishop.īorn in County Cork, Ireland, in 1953, O'Connell studied for the priesthood at the former All Hallows College in Dublin and was ordained to serve in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1979. "He was also a good friend, and I will miss him greatly," continued Gomez, who asked for prayers for the bishop and his family in Ireland. "He was a peacemaker with a heart for the poor and the immigrant, and he had a passion for building a community where the sanctity and dignity of every human life was honored and protected," the archbishop said. In his statement, Archbishop Gomez said O'Connell will be remembered as “a man of deep prayer who had a great love for Our Blessed Mother.” "Bishop Dave," as he was known, was episcopal vicar for the archdiocese's San Gabriel Pastoral Region since 2015, when Pope Francis named him an auxiliary bishop. "It is a shock and I have no words to express my sadness." "I am very sad this afternoon to report that our beloved Auxiliary Bishop David O'Connell has passed away unexpectedly," said Archbishop José H. An investigation was under way for a suspect and motive. to the bishop's home and found him dead of a gunshot wound to his upper torso. Local news reports said Los Angeles Country sheriffs arrived at 1 p.m. He was 69.Īccording to local news reports, he was fatally shot Feb. O'Connell, a native of Ireland who spent most of his four decades as a priest ministering in L.A.'s inner city, has died. ![]()
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