Decades before he donned the red cap of Rome, Cardinal Edwin O’Brien wore a Yankees hat.
The head of the Archdiocese of Baltimore is a Bronx native who survived being a chaplain in Vietnam — and rooting for the Bombers at Orioles games.
O’Brien, 72, has jumped out of planes but never expected to make the leap to the second-biggest job in Roman Catholicism.
“I never imagined I would become a cardinal,” he told the Daily News recently. “I would have been out of my mind.”
Though he’s been assigned to Washington and Maryland for the last 15 years, O’Brien is a New Yorker at heart.
He was educated at Our Lady of Solace School on Morris Park Ave. in the Bronx, St. Mary’s High School in Katonah and St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers.
“I grew up in a safe neighborhood, a tight neighborhood of mostly Catholic and Jewish people,” he said.
“My father died when I was 13 and my mother had to work. We were the only Catholics in our apartment building and our Jewish neighbors adopted us. It was an experience I will never forget.”
Former St. Joseph’s classmate Msgr. Peter Finn said if you listen closely, it’s clear where O’Brien comes from.
“He even talks like a Bronxite,” said Finn, now pastor at Blessed Sacrament Church on Staten Island.
Ordained a priest by Cardinal Spellman in 1965, O’Brien performed his first Mass at his grandmother’s tiny bungalow in Silver Beach in the Bronx, said cousin Gene Connelly.
“She was bedridden and Ed got special permission to have it there,” Connelly said.
He became the civilian chaplain at West Point and later became an Army chaplain attached to the 82nd Airborne Division.
From 1971 to 1972, he watched over troops in Vietnam, flying by helicopter to jungle outposts. He said he volunteered because he “was marrying cadets and burying them a year later.”
“He was a man who loved God and his country,” said Finn, who played football with O’Brien at St. Joseph’s. “He got to know the cadets ... and there was a need.”
Before deploying to Vietnam, O’Brien attended parachute jump school at Fort Bragg, N.C.
“The young cadets were looking forward to it and I thought I could do it, too,” he said.
“You know the phrase, ‘There are no atheists in fox holes?’ They appreciated very much that a priest would go halfway around the world to take care of them.”
O’Brien, a staunch anti-abortion preacher, went on to study sacred theology in Rome, coordinate a papal visit to New York in 1979, serve as rector at St. Joseph's and head the Archdiocese for the Military Services.
Installed as Archbishop of Baltimore in 2007, he backed the Yankees over the hometown team, having worshipped Mickey Mantle when he was young.
“My father was a strong Yankees fan,” he said. “We rooted for the Yankees if we wanted to eat ... Giving up the Yankees would be almost like giving up the faith.”
Last August, Pope Benedict XVI appointed O’Brien the Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, making him Catholic No. 1 in the Holy Land and top fundraiser for sacred sites in the Middle East.
He’s also been serving as the administrator of the Baltimore Archdiocese until his replacement is named.
Now that he’s been named cardinal, he will globetrot between Jerusalem, Rome and the United States.
“I think he’s the man for the job,” said Steven Zabicki Jr., who traveled from Baltimore to Rome to be there Saturday for O’Brien’s elevation. “He was archbishop of the military forces, he’s done umpteen parachute jumps, he’s a rugged man.”
O’Brien also maintains a close relationship with Dolan and often stays with him when in New York.
“I have a key to his house,” said O’Brien, who delivered a sermon at the 25th anniversary of Dolan’s ordination.
He said his higher standing means his life will become more formal. The dedicated treadmill trotter joked that there will be no jogging through the Vatican in sweatpants.
But O’Brien said he won’t forget his humble Bronx roots and will continue to visit his childhood church, where he has performed confirmation every May since 1997.
“The neighborhood has changed,” he said. “There are a lot of Latinos and Filipinos. But the houses are still well kept and people still care for each other. The church has a lot to do with that.”