Bishop David O’Connell, Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles (United States), aged 69, was found dead on Saturday February 18. “I am very sad this afternoon to report that our beloved Auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell passed away unexpectedly.It’s a shock and I have no words to express my sadness.” reacted in a press release the Archbishop of Los Angeles, Msgr. José H. Gómez.
According to information from Los Angeles Times, he was reportedly shot and killed in Hacienda Heights. However, the circumstances of the death of Bishop David O’Connell, ordained auxiliary bishop in 2015, remain unclear, with the police not providing any details on Saturday February 18. In its press release, the diocese of Los Angeles only mentions a death that occurred unexpectedly, without further details.
Tribute from the Archbishop of Los Angeles
The Archbishop of Los Angeles described his Irish-born former auxiliary bishop, ordained a priest for the California diocese in 1979, as a “man of deep prayer”. « He was a peacemaker with a heart for the poor and migrants, and he had a passion for building a community where the sanctity and dignity of every human life was honored and protected,” to écrit Mgr José H. Gómez.
Parish priest in Los Angeles, during the riots of 1992 after the acquittal of police officers who beat up a young black man, Rodney King, Father O’Connell had worked to restore confidence between local communities and the police.
