28 Facts About Cormac Murphy-O'Connor

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor was a British Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Westminster from 2000 to 2009.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor was president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.

The Cormac Murphy-O'Connor family was middle class, with the men becoming doctors or priests, and one in each generation taking over the family business as wine merchants 'to the clergy and gentry of Southern Ireland'.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor's youngest brother, John, was a regular officer in the Royal Artillery who died of renal cell carcinoma; he had two other siblings, James and Catherine.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor's cousin, Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, was a Dominican priest and expert on St Paul who served as Professor of New Testament at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem from 1967 to his death in 2013.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor was ordained on 28 October 1956, by Cardinal Valerio Valeri.

In 1966, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor became the private secretary to Bishop Derek Worlock of Portsmouth.

On 17 November 1977, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor was named Bishop of Arundel and Brighton by Pope Paul VI.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor was appointed the tenth Archbishop of Westminster, and thus head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, on 15 February 2000; in November of that year he was elected President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor was appointed to four curial organisations: the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, the Pontifical Council for the Study of Organisational and Economic Problems of the Holy See, and the Pontifical Council for the Family.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor served on the Pontifical Councils for Culture and for Laity, and was secretary of the Vox Clara commission which oversees the translating of liturgical texts from Latin into English.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor was ineligible to participate in the 2013 conclave due to being aged over 80.

On 28 October 2006, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor celebrated 50 years of ordination with a Jubilee Mass in Westminster Cathedral.

Shortly before reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor submitted his resignation as Archbishop of Westminster to Pope Benedict XVI, who asked that Cormac Murphy-O'Connor remain in his position "until he chooses otherwise".

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor lived the remainder of his life in semi-retirement in Duke's Avenue, Chiswick, London.

In June 2010, after the Ryan Report and Murphy Report on the abuses by the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor was named along with others to oversee the apostolic visitation of certain dioceses and seminaries.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor was named as the visitor to the Diocese of Armagh and its suffragan sees.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor died of cancer on 1 September 2017 after an extended hospital stay.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor was buried under the 10th Station of the Cross in Westminster Cathedral.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor found himself subject to public scrutiny regarding a priest in his diocese when he was Bishop of Arundel and Brighton.

In July 2007, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor welcomed Pope Benedict XVI's relaxation of restrictions on the use of the 1962 Roman Missal.

On 7 May 2007, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor addressed a crowd of undocumented immigrants in Trafalgar Square in support of the Strangers into Citizens campaign, which advocates a path to citizenship for undocumented workers.

In early 2007, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor sent a letter to Tony Blair opposing pending regulations extending to same-sex couples the right to adopt on the same basis as different-sex couples.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said that the law would force people to "act against the teaching of the Church and their own consciences" with regard to Catholic adoption agencies and requested an exemption from the law.

In February 2013, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said that while a radical departure from previous teaching was not likely, it would be "wise" to focus on "what's good and what's true" about marriage and family life instead.

In March 2008, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor joined Cardinal Keith O'Brien of Scotland in opposing the government's proposed embryology bill.

Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said "Certainly, there are some aspects of this bill on which I believe there ought to be a free vote, because Catholics and others will want to vote according to their conscience".

In 2008, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor urged Christians to treat atheists and agnostics with deep esteem, "because the hidden God is active in their lives as well as in the lives of those who believe".