David M. O'Connell
David Michael O'Connell, C.M., was born April 21, 1955, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in Langhorne. He entered the Congregation of the Mission (the Vincentians) and was ordained a priest on May 29, 1982. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Niagara University, a Master of Divinity and Master of Theology from Mary Immaculate Seminary, and a licentiate (1987) and doctorate (1990) in canon law from The Catholic University of America.
In 1998 O'Connell was named the 14th president of The Catholic University of America, a post he held until 2010. On June 4, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him coadjutor bishop of Trenton; he was consecrated July 30, 2010, and succeeded to the see on December 1, 2010. His episcopal motto is Ministrare non ministrari -- 'To serve and not to be served.'
O'Connell remains the sitting Bishop of Trenton as of mid-2026 (age about 71; he reaches the retirement age of 75 in April 2030). In December 2014 he underwent amputation of his left leg following a severe bone infection. His response to Traditionis Custodes was notably preservationist: he authorized the continued celebration of the 1962 Missal at five designated parishes, with a sixth permitted on certain First Fridays, and suppressed none of the diocese's existing Traditional Latin Mass sites.
The crux -- what did Traditionis Custodes actually produce in Trenton? The answer is preservation. Within days of the July 16, 2021 motu proprio, Bishop O'Connell authorized continued use of the 1962 Missal at five designated parishes -- St. John the Baptist (Allentown), St. Catherine Laboure (Middletown), Holy Innocents (Neptune), Holy Cross (Rumson), and St. Dominic (Brick) -- with a sixth site permitted to offer the Traditional Latin Mass on the First Fridays of alternating months. According to the Traditionis Custodes tracking project, no existing Latin Masses in the diocese were suppressed.
Two things stand out on the deeds. First, he kept the Masses at named parishes rather than exiling them to gymnasiums or funeral chapels, which placed him among the more permissive American bishops in the immediate aftermath of the motu proprio. Second, there is no public record of him tightening, capping, or relocating those Masses in the years since, nor of him invoking the harsher 2023 rescript to shut sites down. The diocese's traditional communities are served by diocesan priests; there is no FSSP or ICKSP apostolate in Trenton.
The honest limit of the record: O'Connell is a Vincentian canon lawyer and former university president, a mainstream teacher-bishop, not a vocal champion of the ancient rite. His friendliness is shown in what he declined to destroy rather than in advocacy for the usus antiquior, and no public statement of his warmly defends the old Mass on its own terms. But judged by deeds and dates -- every site kept, none suppressed, no later crackdown -- his record is that of a shepherd who chose to shelter, not scatter. On the evidence, a genuine, if understated, friend to the faithful attached to Tradition.