When Cardinal O’Connell, Archbishop of Boston, passed away in 1944, he was buried under a chapel in Brighton, on the campus of St. John’s Seminary.

When Cardinal O’Connell, Archbishop of Boston, passed away in 1944, he was buried under a chapel in Brighton, on the campus of St. John’s Seminary. He had the chapel constructed in 1928 for this very purpose, saying publicly, “in that crypt is the place my body, after death, shall repose until the Judgment Day.”

The Cardinal went on to confirm this desire in his 1943 will, and his wishes were carried out the next year. For six decades, his remains have been interred on the Archdiocese land.

However, the land where the chapel stands is no longer a part of the campus of St. John’s Seminary, no longer even land owned by the Archdiocese of Boston. In 2004, the Archdiocese sold the land to Boston College in order to make restitution to the victims of the abuse scandal at the time. According to Boston College’s University spokesman Jack Dunn, as a condition of the sale, the Archdiocese agreed to move the Cardinal’s body to a location more befitting a Cardinal Archbishop.

When Boston College received approval to move forward with the 10 year Master Plan, and began expansion to the Brighton Campus, the necessity to fulfill this agreement was realized. The Archdiocese and Boston College filed a joint petition in Probate Court of Massachusetts for approval to relocate O’Connell’s remains.

Statues of angels stand guard in front of the chapel

In the official statement from Boston College, Jack Dunn says, “In jointly filing the petition, Boston College supports the decision to establish a permanent resting place at St. Sebastian’s School in Needham, which Cardinal O’Connell founded in 1941. The University believes that this resting place, at an Archdiocesan site, is respectful of the late Cardinal and his heirs, faithful to our Catholic heritage and best in accordance with his wishes.”

In the months since the filing of the petition, however, several of O’Connell’s surviving family members have come forward in protest of the relocation. Twenty-two family members signed a court filing objecting to the proposition, describing it as “irreparable damage to the mortal remains of the cardinal.”

Richard Iannella, the Suffolk County register of probate, recently told the Boston Globe, “I don’t recall ever seeing this type of case before…It’s not that often that somebody comes in and asks to exhume a body.” The Probate Court usually sees cases of divorce, adoption, and wills.

The family member at the forefront of the debate is O’Connell’s grandnephew, Edward W. Kirk, a Cape Cod lawyer, who is representing the family in court. “Here you have a man whose connection to both of those institutions is intimate and intricate, and yet here those two parties are suing his family for his removal. It is very strange and it’s most unfortunate that it had to come to this.” Kirk said in a phone interview to the Boston Globe, referring the Archdiocese and Boston College, from where O’Connell is an alumnus.

Altar in chapel where Cardinal O'Connel is buried

The O’Connell family’s filing outlines the Cardinal’s history with the Archdiocese and the university. He was instrumental in the development of the Brighton land. Since the Archdiocese no longer owns that land, Kirk argues, it has no right to try to relocate O’Connell’s body. He also claims that no one has no right to move the body because it has been properly buried.

The probate court scheduled the hearing on the case for February, but Kirk plans to attempt to move the case to land court for real estate issues. Jack Dunn, University spokesman, has simply said, “We await the court’s ruling in anticipation that the decision of the Cardinal Archbishop and the Archdiocese of Boston, supported by Boston College, will be upheld by the Probate Court.”

The Observer will continue to release information on this topic as it develops. For additional coverage, please see the September 22nd issue on our website.