Mark O'Connell (bishop)

Mark William O'Connell (born June 25, 1964) is a Canadian-born American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He has been serving as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston in Massachusetts since 2016. He has been the vicar general and moderator of the curia of the archdiocese since 2023.

Early life
Mark O'Connell was born in Toronto, Ontario, on June 25, 1964, to Thomas F. and Margaret M. (Delaney) O'Connell, both American citizens. His father Thomas was the head librarian at York University in Toronto. Mark O'Connell has two brothers and one sister. The family returned to Massachusetts when Mark O'Connell was age 12, his father taking a job at Boston College.

Mark O'Connell graduated from Dover-Sherborn High School in Dover, Massachusetts, in 1982. He then entered Boston College, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and philosophy in 1986. Having decided to enter the priesthood, O'Connell then studied at Saint John's Seminary in Boston.

Priesthood
O'Connell was ordained into the priesthood at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston by Cardinal Bernard Law for the Archdiocese of Boston on June 16, 1990. After his ordination, O'Connell served in parishes in Woburn and Danvers and as a college chaplain at Salem State College, all in Massachusetts.

O'Connell undertook studies in canon law starting in 1997 at the Pontifical Athenaeum of the Holy Cross in Rome, completing his licentiate degree in 1999 and his doctorate in 2002. O'Connell's dissertation was titled The Mobility of Secular Clerics and Incardination. After returning to Boston, he joined the canonical affairs staff of the archdiocese in 2001 and was appointed judicial vicar in 2007, a position he held until 2018.

From 2009 to 2012, O'Connell served as a senior consultor to the Canon Law Society of America. He has also served on the faculty of Saint John's Seminary and Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary in Weston, Massachusetts. From 2011 to 2014, O'Connell was a co-host on the daily radio program The Good Catholic Life, broadcast on radio station WQOM in Boston.

Auxiliary Bishop of Boston
On June 3, 2016, Pope Francis appointed O'Connell as an auxiliary bishop of Boston and titular bishop of Gigthi in Tripolitana. He was consecrated on August 24, 2016, at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston by Cardinal Seán O'Malley, with Bishops Walter Edyvean and Peter Uglietto serving as co-consecrators.

As auxiliary bishop, O'Connell was assigned the north region of the archdiocese as well as pastor of St. Theresa Parish in North Reading, Massachusetts, until December 31, 2022. Since January 1, 2023, he has served as vicar general and moderator of the curia of the archdiocese.

For the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, O'Connell is a member of the Committee for the Protection of Children & Young People.