When I think of my friend John Cardinal O’Connor, who died on Wednesday at the age of 80, I will most remember the sight of him running up the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to the cardinal’s chair before mass. It always brought a smile to the 3,000 people who were there. Though he could not do it in recent months because his health had deteriorated, it is that movement—the energy level, the sense that there was so much to be done—that will always be my memory. He was a generous man, full of compassion and love, and his loss will leave an enormous gaping hole in all of New York City and beyond.

From the time he came to New York in 1984, during my second term as mayor of the city, there was a unique bond between us. Though I am Jewish and he, of course, was Catholic, I don’t think such a friendship ever existed between a mayor and a prelate. He could call me for any assistance that he wanted. And I knew that I could call him, for example, to visit the family of Steven McDonald, a police officer who was shot in the line of duty. In 1989, at his suggestion, we wrote a book together, “His Eminence and Hizzoner,” in which we took turns laying out our positions and differences. We had very strong disagreements, and occasionally even took them to court. But there was always great mutual respect. When he went to the Vatican to be made cardinal in 1985, he asked me to be one of the four witnesses at one of the ceremonies. That night, he said to me, “Only in New York could two people who are constantly suing each other be such good friends.” And I have to say, he won all the suits.

People would sometimes ask me how we could maintain our close friendship when our positions were so different on issues like abortion and gay rights. But those issues were a part of our relationship. We would have regular dinners at the rectory or at Gracie Mansion to discuss very substantive matters. I remember once, during a discussion about abortion, he said that in the hypothetical case of a fetus developing without a brain, there was no sin in abortion, because the baby didn’t have a soul. I suggested that he should make his position more clearly known to the public. He said, “My position is clear. It’s 180 degrees different than your position.”

Neither of us ever had the goal of changing the other’s mind. We just wanted the other to believe that we weren’t simply shooting from the hip, or taking a knee-jerk position, but believed what we said, sincerely, deeply. Of course, if I were Catholic, there could not have been such a relationship. But as it was, he jocularly could forgive me under the doctrine of the “invincibly ignorant.” I didn’t question that. In this area I didn’t mind being invincibly ignorant.

In a city as diverse as New York, the cardinal was bound to offend some people with his strict, conservative positions. But he always said, “The Catholic faith is not a salad bar. You don’t pick and choose. And I am here to teach the faith.” More importantly, he truly lived the old line “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” You can’t fully appreciate that line until you saw someone like the cardinal, who really lived that life. Whatever his position on gay rights, he was more than active in New York’s AIDS hospices. He dedicated a major facility at one of the archdiocese’s hospitals to caring for AIDS patients, and he would visit, unannounced, to care for patients, washing them, changing their bedpans. He attended to thousands of patients over the years. In our book, I wrote that the difference between me and the cardinal was that he was in the business of saving souls, while I was in the business of saving lives. On rereading the book recently, I had to apologize for that one line. He saved more lives than I ever could have.

When he first came to New York, an opinion poll put his approval rating at 65 percent. His popularity, however, quickly soared as the city’s Catholics came to know him. The reason for the dramatic increase in support was the love that exuded from him. I remember once rushing to a fire, and the cardinal was there. A reporter asked me why I was there, and I said, to offer my cellular phone to people who might need it to call their families. Then the reporter asked the cardinal the same question. He responded, “Because I am a simple parish priest.” I thought to myself, I could never compete with this man.

Shortly before his death, he sent me a letter that began, “It would be impossible to reflect adequately on the 16 years we have shared.” It made me cry, because it was the kind of letter you write when you’re saying goodbye. I’ll miss my good friend and spiritual leader, one of the few truly heroic figures in our lives. I weep for him, but even more for all of us, who can no longer draw on his strength.

Photo: A former Navy chaplain who served in Vietnam and a formidable political theorist, O’Connor was a theological conservative who answered his calling with love