‘The priesthood is different’

Archbishop Keleher celebrates his 50th anniversary as a priest

By JOE BOLLIG
Leaven staff

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Perhaps it was destiny that of the two career paths that interested Archbishop James P. Keleher as a boy, both led to a cross.
One would have led him to the Maltese cross of a Chicago firefighter. The other — the one he chose — would lead to the pectoral cross of an archbishop.
“The two things I thought about, when I was only about seven years old, was to either be a priest or a firefighter,” said Archbishop Keleher. “A firefighter — could you imagine? That quickly passed.”
The Chicago Fire Department’s loss was the church’s gain: Archbishop Keleher recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of his ordination as a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago on April 12, 1958, by Cardinal Samuel A. Stritch.
The archbishop marked the occasion by celebrating a Mass on April 7 with a Mass for chancery staff, followed by a luncheon, at Savior Pastoral Center in Kansas City, Kan.
There was no single, overriding influence in his life, said Archbishop Keleher, that led to his vocation as a priest. Rather, it was a whole host of signs that pointed to the altar.

A very Catholic
upbringing

Archbishop Keleher grew up on the South Side of Chicago, so far out from the downtown area at that time that it was nicknamed “the sticks.” His home, in fact, was just a block from the very end of the streetcar line that served the area. It wasn’t “a very Catholic neighborhood,” like some parts of Chicago, but it did have a Catholic church nearby — St. Felicitas Parish.
Archbishop Keleher grew up in a strong Catholic family. His mother, Rita, was a nurse until she left that profession to raise him and his sister, Rita. Archbishop Keleher’s father, James, was a candle salesman. Consequently, they knew a lot of priests.
“My parents were devout Catholics,”  he said. “Dad was very involved in church business, since he represented Will & Baumer Candle Company. He took care of sanctuary lamps and candles and vigil lights for many, many churches.”
“He had a great love for priests,” he continued. “He was the kind of salesman that never pushed, but just seemed to enjoy sitting down with the pastor and having a cup of coffee, and then finally saying, ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’ So, priests really got to love him.”
His son, in turn, was impressed by his father’s admiration of priests. Although he felt no pressure to become one, said the archbishop, families and society both were very supportive of boys who considered priestly vocations in those days.
“When I was growing up, a young man who expressed interest in the priesthood was applauded by not only parents and other adults, but even by classmates and other young people,” said the archbishop.
Unfortunately, he continued, that is a “situation that today no longer prevails, and makes the decision to move in that direction much more difficult for young men today.”
Among those who encouraged him to explore the priesthood was his pastor, Msgr. Jim Walsh.
“When I was in eighth grade, he came down the aisle [of the church] and said, ‘Jimmy, you ought to be a priest. You should go to Quigley [Seminary]. I’ll take you down there and show you around’ — which he did,” the archbishop recalled.
Just when it seemed that the young Keleher was on the fast track for the seminary, he was sidetracked by, of all things, his alarm clock.
“I had signed up to go into the minor, or high school, seminary (Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary),” said the archbishop.
But when on the very day he was to register, his alarm woke him at 5:25 a.m., he made a decision that could have changed everything.
“I decided,” the archbishop said with a chuckle, “to simply roll over.”
When someone from the seminary called the Keleher home, asking “Where’s Jimmy?,” his mother replied simply, “I don’t think he’s coming this year.”
At this point, his parents could have gone to either extreme — either discouraging a priestly vocation or become heavy-handed and push him toward seminary. Wisely, they did neither.
“My parents never, ever pushed me to become a priest,” recalled the archbishop. “My parents said, ‘Whatever you want to do, you do.’”
 The archbishop wound up going nearby Mount Carmel High School instead. There, the Carmelites also quickly recognized his potential vocation and tried to recruit him.
Had he joined the Carmelite order, explained the archbishop, he would have been obliged to go wherever his superior sent him. And although after a year at Mount Carmel he was ready to take the next step on the road to a vocation, he knew that even if it led him all the way to the priesthood, he’d want to stay close to Chicago and family.
So, just a year later than he’d first intended to, the young man headed for Quigley.
This time, there was no rolling over and going back to sleep.
“From then on, I got up at 5:25 a.m. and went to 6 a.m. Mass every single day,” he said. “[Next] I took a street car to ‘the L,’ (elevated train) where it took an hour and 10 minutes to reach my destination. The seminary was on the near north side of Chicago.”

In the
beginning, there was Quigley

Quigley offered a rigorous, classical education over the course of a five-year program. The curriculum required learning one modern language, Latin, classical Greek, and English. By the time he graduated in 1951, Archbishop Keleher could read the New Testament in both Greek and Latin.
Only about 10 percent of the archbishop’s graduating class of 200 went on to the major seminary. The archbishop chose to continue his studies at the University of St. Mary of the Lake Mundelein Seminary.
Unlike Quigley, where he commuted to and from school every day, he lived on campus with the other seminarians at Mundelein.
Visits to and from home were few and far between, and the program was, if anything, more rigorous than Quigley. At Mundelein, Archbishop Keleher studied philosophy for three years and theology for four.
Archbishop Keleher entered more deeply into his vocation while at Mundelein, but, like nearly all men who have explored a vocation to the priesthood, he had his time of doubt.
“During my second year of philosophy, I questioned whether or not I should go on,” said the archbishop. “I had a period of time when I wondered, but that passed. I think every [seminarian] goes through it at a certain time, ‘Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life?’”
Today’s seminarians, he admits, have it both better and worse than they did in his day. On the one hand, the abundance of career options today for young men complicates the issue of whether or not to pursue a priestly vocation, he said. On the other hand, that sometimes means they’re able to make a more informed decision than his contemporaries could.
“Because of the many things they can do, I think once they have made a decision, it’s a very firm one,” said the archbishop. “You might say that we were less sophisticated and a bit more naïve, because the possibilities at the time were not as great as young men have today. Both [eras] have their pluses and minuses.”

A life of
learning and teaching

The archbishop was ordained by Cardinal Samuel A. Stritch on April 12, 1958. Though the usual course for a newly ordained priest in those days was to be placed in a parish as an associate pastor under the guidance of an experienced pastor, he was immediately set on a different path.
  Instead of being assigned to a parish, he faced three and a half more years of work on his doctoral dissertation, which was on the writings of St. Augustine.
He didn’t spend all his time in the library, however. In addition to his studies, he became chaplain and confessor to the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, who had a convent on the Mundelein campus.
After completing his doctoral degree in 1962, Archbishop Keleher became an associate pastor at St. Henry Parish in the Rogers Park neighborhood.
“It was originally a Luxembourger and German parish, but they were very friendly to me, because I was Irish,” said the archbishop. “It was a great experience for me.”
In 1966, the young priest was asked to add teaching to his duties. So, in addition to being an associate pastor, he began teaching religion at the minor seminary, known as Quigley North. In 1969, he became dean of formation at Niles College Seminary in Chicago, then dean of formation at Mundelein from 1972 to 1975.
“I had a wonderful experience during those three years,” said the archbishop. “I was sent to Rome to do further studies in the area of spiritual theology.”
By then a veteran educator, the archbishop was tapped to become director of his old alma mater, Mundelein Seminary, in 1978. There he presumed he might remain until retirement. But Rome had other ideas. In 1984, he was made bishop of the Diocese of Belleville, Ill. In 1993, he was elevated again, this time to archbishop of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.
As he looks back over his 50 years of priesthood, Archbishop Keleher offers this advice for young men about to be ordained: Be a true shepherd to your people — caring, loving and available. Although you will not always succeed, a loving shepherd will make an impact for years to come.
He also offers a word of warning: Don’t neglect your own spiritual life. The temptation, when priests get busy, is to give up times of prayer and spiritual development in order to do more pastoral work. 
“That is a bad mistake and, in the end, is a disaster,” said the archbishop.

A very
fulfilling life

With all its joys and sorrows, Archbishop Keleher looks back on his ministry with satisfaction and gratitude.
“I have never regretted one day in the 50 years of my priesthood, and I don’t think [our seminarians] will either,” he said. “It’s a very fulfilling vocation in a world where there is very little job satisfaction — where money is at the center of so many things. But the priesthood is different.
“You really feel you can do something for people — the most important thing of all is for their eternal salvation. [Priests] are needed more now than ever.”