Denis T. O'Connor

Denis Thomas O'Connor (26 February 1841 – 30 June 1911) was a Canadian prelate of the Catholic Church. The first member of the Congregation of St. Basil to become a bishop, he served as Bishop of London (1890-1899) and later as the first Canadian-born Archbishop of Toronto (1899-1908).

Early life and education O'Connor was born on 26 February 1841 in Pickering, Ontario. He was the eldest of three children of Denis O'Connor and Mary O'Leary, who were Irish immigrants from County Cork. His mother died in 1846 and his father remarried, having ten more children. Five of his sisters would join religious orders. After completing his classical and philosophical studies at St. Michael's, he entered the novitiate of the Basilian Fathers in 1859 and made his profession on 24 June 1860. He then went to France to study theology at the Basilian colleges in Feyzin and Annonay. although he unsuccessfully sought to decline the appointment. He avoided significant expansion of the Diocese of London during his tenure, having inherited debt from the construction of St. Peter's Cathedral and overseeing a decline in the local Catholic population from 70,000 in 1890 to 60,000 in 1899. One notable exception was the establishment of St. Joseph's Hospital in London. O'Connor had a poor relationship with the clergy and laity of the archdiocese. He was strongly opposed to interfaith marriage and required his personal approval for any such marriage, even doubling the fees for the weddings. He also prohibited women from serving in church choirs, applied a strict implementation of Pope Pius X's Tra le sollecitudini that discouraged more modern liturgical music, banned parishes from holding picnics, and refused to allow the Knights of Columbus to expand into the archdiocese on the grounds that there were already too many Catholic societies.

Later life and death O'Connor submitted his resignation as Archbishop of Toronto in April 1908, and it was accepted by the pope on 4 May 1908. At the same time, he was given the honorary tile of Titular Archbishop of Laodicea in Syria. He was succeeded by Fergus McEvay, who had also succeeded him as Bishop of London.

O’Connor spent his retirement at the Basilian novitiate in Toronto. He died there from complications with Bright's disease and diabetes on 30 June 1911, at age 70. He is buried in Mount Hope Catholic Cemetery. Archbishop Denis O'Connor Catholic High School in Ajax is named for him.