Shooting death of LA bishop being investigated as homicide

LOS ANGELES - An auxiliary bishop with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles discovered shot in his home in the1500 block of Janlu Avenue in Hacienda Heights Saturday afternoon is being investigated as a homicide.

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said that Bishop David O’Connell was found deceased from gunshot wound to the upper torso. Deputies were dispatched to O’Connell’s residence after a call for medical assistance was received.

After the determination that suicide was not a factor and ruled out overnight, LASD investigators launched a homicide investigation.

Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez released a statement Sunday morning after the declaration that the death was now considered a homicide:

“We learned early this morning from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office that they have determined that the death of Auxiliary Bishop David O’Connell yesterday was a homicide. Weare deeply disturbed and saddened by this news.

Let us continue to pray for Bishop Dave and his family. And let us pray for law enforcement officials as they continue their investigation into this terrible crime.

We ask Our Blessed Mother Mary to intercede and be a mother for all of us in this moment ofsadness and pain.”

The office of Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna also released a statement to reassure parishioners and others that his department was actively searching for those responsible although the LASD has not released information regarding a suspect or suspects.

“We can only imagine how the community is suffering because of this senseless murder. Bishop O’Connell was a guiding light for so many, and his legacy will continue to live on through the community that he helped build,” the statement from the LASD read adding, “Please know that you are not alone in your grief and that @lasdhq is here to support you. Our thoughts and prayers are with you, and we are working diligently to seek those responsible.”

KABC 7 Eyewitness News reported that devastated parishioners gathered by the crime scene Saturday as deputies investigated.

“It broke me and I was scared to tell my wife because my wife loved him so much,” said parishioner Johnny Flores. Glendy Perez, another parishioner, told KABC: O’Connell “was an humble soul.”

“He was not the type that would have confrontations with nobody,” she said. “He was very loving, and he had like a gift of healing. When you would attend his ceremonies, it was like a gift of healing.”

O’Connell was born in County Cork, Ireland, and studied for the priesthood at All Hallows College in Dublin. He was ordained to serve in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 1979. Pope Francis named O’Connell an auxiliary bishop in 2015. After being ordained O’Connell was a pastor at a number of parishes in Los Angeles and several surrounding communities. He worked on efforts to curb violence in the city, and many of his congregants were minorities and immigrants.

“It’s been the great joy of my life to be the pastor of these people, especially the ones who are suffering or in need or facing difficulty,” O’Connell told Angelus News in 2015. Additionally he was the chairman of the Interdiocesan Southern California Immigration Task Force, helping coordinate the church’s response to immigrant children and families from Central America.

In 2018, Bishop O’Connell was censored for acknowledging the reality that LGBTQ+ families exist. Mount Rainier, Maryland-based New Ways Ministry reported in its online newsletter that O’Connell had participated in the “Amoris: Let’s Talk Family! Let’s Be Family!” video series produced in anticipation of the 2018 World Meeting of Families (WMF) scheduled for Ireland that August.

Connell’s recognition of lesbian and gay families was removed from the video series, part of catechetical materials created for parish discussion groups ahead of the event.

The Irish Independent reported on how part of his comments in the videos were censored:

“In the original video clip, [O’Connell] stated: ‘Pope Francis, he gets it. He gets it that our society has changed so much in the last couple of generations.’

“‘We have all sorts of configurations of families now, whether it’s just the traditional family of mum and dad together, or it’s now mum on her own or dad on his own, or a gay couple raising children, or people in second marriages. No matter what the configuration of the family is, the call is still to adults to think about how to provide the best, most loving, faithful environment for children possible.’

“However, people accessing the video clip now will no longer be able to hear these words because they have been removed.”

New Ways Ministry noted that removing O’Connell’s recognition that lesbian and gay couples exist and are raising children came after right-wing critics successfully pressured WMF organizers to remove LGBT-related photos and a reference to same-gender relationships from print materials.

By BRODY LEVESQUE