Early life and education Gerald O'Hara was born on May 4, 1895, in the Green Ridge section of
Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Patrick James and Margaret (née Carney) O'Hara; both of whom were of Irish descent. His father was a dentist. He attended Our Mother of Sorrows School and
St. Joseph's College High School, both in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He earned a
doctorate in canon and civil law from the
Pontifical Roman Athenaeum Saint Apollinare in 1924. Following his return to Pennsylvania in 1926, O'Hara became private secretary to Cardinal
Dennis Dougherty, the archbishop of Philadelphia. O'Hara also served as a judge on the archdiocesan
matrimonial court. The cathedral was built on the former site of
Ku Klux Klan gatherings, and O'Hara even invited Imperial Wizard
Hiram Evans to the dedication. O'Hara once criticized the
Savannah Press after the newspaper ran a whimsical
St. Patrick's Day editorial repeating an old story about Saint Patrick. He allegedly granted upper class women in Ireland to court men during
leap years. O'Hara was considered a leader in church efforts to improve
race relations, launching a seven-point social and racial program in the 1930s, calling for aid to African American children and heightened awareness of rural issues. On returning to New York City, O'Hara denied the Romanian allegations, calling them "lies from first to last". O'Hara accused the Romanian Government of
terrorism, insisting, "Our interest was solely the welfare of 3,000,000 Catholic people in Romania."
Apostolic Delegate to Great Britain On June 8, 1954, O'Hara was named
apostolic delegate to Great Britain. Drained by his dual duties as Papal diplomat and diocesan bishop, O'Hara resigned as Bishop of Savannah on November 12, 1959; he was named
titular archbishop of
Pessinus by
Pope St. John XXIII on the same date. In 1960, O'Hara became the first Papal representative to visit the British
Houses of Parliament in more than 400 years. ==References==