N.Y. Cardinal Misses Mass, Citing Exhaustion
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NEW YORK — Radiation therapy left John Cardinal O’Connor, spiritual leader of New York’s 2.2 million Catholics for the last 15 years, too weak to celebrate Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Sunday.
It was the first service he had missed since having a brain tumor removed last month.
“I used to think that I knew what it was to be tired. After having received all but the final radiation treatment, I now realize that at my most exhausted, I could have run the marathon in comparison with the tiredness that can come with radiation treatment,” O’Connor said in a statement read Sunday.
The cardinal, who has said he does not have cancer, has been receiving radiation treatment since the surgery. He has said he plans to retire when he turns 80 in January.
The cardinal’s spokesman, Joe Zwilling, said O’Connor “has been unfailingly positive” and “in exceptionally good humor.”
He would not comment on the cardinal’s medical prognosis.
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