In an address in which he urged more than 30,000 people gathered in Fenway Park who came to hail him as a great churchman and a great citizen on the occasion of the golden jubilee of his ordination to the priesthood, William Cardinal O’Connell called upon Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, people of many races, who today are one in the love and obedience of our beloved country, to “dwell together in harmony and proclaim the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.”
The Cardinal paid an eloquent tribute to the Jewish people and reminded the vast throng and countless listeners over a national radio hookup that it must never forget—Christianity came from Judaism and it was to the Jewish people that God gave the great commandments and that the whole world has accepted these commandments as handed down by Moses.
The whole address was filled with Hebraic thought and even the ceremony had a touch of Jewish liturgy as the Cardinal called upon the vast assemblage to rise and chant with him “the prayer that has come down to us for centuries.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
