The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston's sale of land in Brighton to Boston College had one rather unusual condition: Church leaders would have to remove the remains of a long-dead cardinal entombed in a mausoleum on the grounds.But four years later, the body of Cardinal William H. O'Connell is still encased in the earth beneath the limestone mausoleum, guarded by statues of angels and lions, on a quiet hilltop near where BC proposes to build dormitories and athletic fields.
The move is proving to be a complicated one - far more than a previous exhumation on the same property some 80 years ago.
Back then, when O'Connell himself moved to Lake Street, he demanded that the bodies of Sulpician priests be dug up and removed.
The archdiocese is planning to meet, for the second time in four years, with O'Connell's closest remaining survivors: two great-nieces and three great-nephews.
The family, or at least its most vocal members, wants the body to stay where it is; BC wants it removed; and the archdiocese is trying simultaneously to honor the memory of one of its most powerful leaders, keep its promise to BC, and respect the family's wishes.
The archdiocese declined to make Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley available for comment and refused to answer any questions, including why it agreed to exhume O'Connell's body, what role the wishes of family members or the late cardinal will play, or what the next step is.
"We view this as a private matter and respectfully reserve comment," said Terrence C. Donilon, archdiocesan spokesman.
For its part, BC says no one has been buried on its campus in its 145-year history, and it has no interest in changing that now.
"Out of respect for the late cardinal, we do not think it appropriate that a prince of the church be buried on what is now a university campus," said Jack Dunn, BC spokesman. "A final resting place, in a more secluded area, seems much more fitting for the late cardinal-archbishop of Boston."
O'Connell, a larger-than-life autocrat who ruled the archdiocese from 1907 to 1944, at the height of its power, was occasionally controversial in life, and his reputation has taken a hit since his death, with critical biographies exploring corruption and sexual scandals in his administration.
Short, stout, and imposing, O'Connell was a sharp dresser, the proud owner of a succession of black poodles, and such a frequent traveler that he was sometimes derided as "gangplank Bill."
His tenure was almost derailed when it was revealed that he had failed to act against two local priests, one of them his nephew and closest aide, who had secretly married women.
But O'Connell, ever ambitious and assured, survived the scandal and remained a major society figure and a significant political influence as he led the archdiocese through a period of power and growth until his death at age 84.
O'Connell never left any doubt about where he intended to be buried. He personally directed the construction of the limestone chapel in 1928 to mark his future grave.
Sixteen years before his death, he told reporters that he built the chapel for his mausoleum because he worried that few people were praying for his predecessors who were buried in the crypt beneath the cathedral.
He said at the time that he hoped that after his death students at St. John's Seminary would notice the mausoleum and be moved to pray for O'Connell's "eternal rest."
"One day, which is known only to God, my lifeless body will pass through that door, beneath that statue, for in that crypt is the place my body shall repose until the judgment day," O'Connell said on his 69th birthday. "I see the little chapel every morning the first thing after I awake, and I salute her whose statue is above the door, and I know what the vacant crypt will one day contain."
And, lest there be any confusion, O'Connell reiterated his wishes in his will, using a different name for the chapel, but writing, "I direct that my funeral obsequies be as simple as possible and that I be buried in the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin on the grounds of St. John's Seminary, Brighton, Massachusetts."
Of course, his funeral rites were not at all simple - thousands of people came to see him waked in a bronze coffin so heavy it took 16 policemen to lift it - and the chapel is no longer part of the grounds of St. John's Seminary, because the property has been sold to BC.
"Cardinal O'Connell did not wish to be buried at Boston College," Dunn said. "His will states that he wished to be buried on the grounds of St. John's Seminary. Given that that land has been sold to Boston College, burial at a more appropriate site would conform better with his expressed intentions."
O'Connell's mausoleum is in the midst of 65 acres that the archdiocese, seeking money to settle sexual abuse cases and fund programs, sold to BC in several stages starting in 2004.
The property had served as the headquarters of the archdiocese, the residence of its bishops, and the home of one of its two seminaries, but by summer, when the church shifts its headquarters to Braintree, only the seminary will remain.
Edward W. Kirk, an Osterville lawyer who is a great-nephew of the late cardinal, wants the body to stay where it is.
"He selected the spot that he's in, he had the little chapel built, he had the arrangements made many years before his death to be buried right there, and we'd like to see his wishes continued to be honored," Kirk said. "It seems quite clear he did not want to be buried deep in the basement of the cathedral."
Kirk never met the cardinal, but considers himself in debt to O'Connell for a bit of an odd reason: Kirk was conceived when his father, then serving abroad in the military, returned to the United States for O'Connell's funeral.
"I have the cardinal's passing to credit for my arrival on this earth," Kirk said.
Kirk's older brother, Paul G. Kirk Jr., a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, does remember, as a young boy, visiting the cardinal at his residence, which has also been sold to BC. Kirk made it clear that his family is prepared to contest any attempt to move the body in probate court, which has jurisdiction over disinterments.
"The family has talked about this, and it's not absolutely unanimous, but there's an obvious consensus that the thing everybody wishes for is that the cardinal remain where he now lies," Paul Kirk said.
The archdiocese and BC have discussed the idea of moving O'Connell's body to the crypt at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, where his two immediate predecessors, Bishop John B. Fitzpatrick and Archbishop John J. Williams, are interred. Boston's first bishop, Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus, is buried in France; O'Connell's successor, Cardinal Richard J. Cushing, on the grounds of a special needs school in Hanover; and his successor, Cardinal Humberto S. Medeiros, in a family plot in Fall River.
Dunn said that if the cathedral is chosen as the burial place, BC will "contribute to improvements" of the crypt. Dunn also suggested the archdiocese could move O'Connell's remains to a crypt in the chapel at St. John's Seminary, to respect the provision of the will.
O'Connell graduated from BC in 1881 and was a strong supporter of the school, facilitating its move from the South End to Brighton as the cardinal tried to fashion a "little Rome" in Brighton.
If the cardinal were to remain buried on what is now the BC campus, the college would not be the first with such a distinction. Boston's second bishop, Benedict J. Fenwick, is buried in a Jesuit cemetery on the campus of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester. And some schools have individual burials: The first president of Brandeis University, Abram L. Sachar, and his wife are buried on that campus, for example.
The Massachusetts Historical Commission claims some potential oversight role as well, which could pose a problem for those who want to move the cardinal's remains. The commission is overseen by Secretary of State William F. Galvin, who lives near the former archdiocesan property and has become a frequent critic of the archdiocese and BC.
The historical commission has already sent the Boston Redevelopment Authority a letter requesting an archeological survey of the grounds, saying "the records are not clear" as to whether the graves of the Sulpician priests were actually exhumed when O'Connell replaced all the Sulpicians on the faculty at St. John's Seminary.
However, O'Connell biographer James M. O'Toole, a BC history professor, said the Sulpician bodies are gone. He said the oft-told story is that O'Connell had a grudge against the Sulpicians.
"O'Connell dismissed the faculty and replaced them with diocesan priests, and when they left, they took the bodies with them," O'Toole said.
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