Home › O › O'Connell (WILLIAM HENRY CARDINAL)

O'Connell (WILLIAM HENRY CARDINAL)

WILLIAM HENRY, CARDINAL. Catholic prelate. Born at Lowell, Mass., in 1859, he graduated as B. A. from Boston College in 1881, after which he entered the American College at Rome, where he was ordained priest in 1884. He was appointed rector of the American College in Rome in 1895, named domestic prelate in 1897, and consecrated bishop of Portland, Me., at St. John Lateran, Rome, in 1901. In 1905 he was named assistant at the Pontifical Throne, and in the same year represented the Vatican at the court of the emperor of Japan, from whom he received the Grand Cordon of the Sacred Treasure.

He was named archbishop of Constance and coadjutor with succession of Boston in 1906, and succeeded to the see of Boston in 1907, being made cardinal in 1911. In May, 1920, he represented the United States at the beatification in Rome of Oliver Plunkett.