BishopAccountability.org
	Thomas Kelly's Legacy The Courier-Journal December 16, 2011 http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20111216/OPINION01/312160019/Thomas-Kelly-archbishop-Louisville-interfaith-gays-divorce-cathedral-sex-abuse-pedophile-priests-Catholic?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|s The death Wednesday of Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly at the age of 80 deprives the Archdiocese of Louisville, which he led from 1982 to 2007, and the community of a man of simplicity, scholarship and community outreach. Archbishop Kelly tirelessly sought interfaith ties — sometimes in big ways, such as helping to create the Festival of Faiths and to recruite Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) headquarters to Louisville, often in small but frequent meetings with leaders and members of other religions to discuss moral and local issues. Although the archbishop upheld church teachings on marriage and sexuality, he welcomed gays and divorced people to church. In 1995, he expressed support for what was to become the Fairness ordinance curbing anti-gay discrimination. In a remarkable statement at the time from a religious leader, he wrote: “The Catholic Church supports the basic human rights of all persons, and affirms the fact that homosexual persons have the same rights as all persons, including the right to be treated in a manner that upholds their personal dignity. ... The intrinsic dignity of each person must be respected in word and in action.” Archbishop Kelly even turned his announcement in 1996 that he was seeking treatment for alcoholism and addiction to pain medicines into an occasion for openness that doubtless helped other people with similar problems. The archbishop’s work to restore downtown’s Cathedral of the Assumption is rightfully credited as a major commitment by the church to the community’s urban core. However, Archbishop Kelly also had to deal with the shift of people from the city to the suburbs, by making painful but necessary decisions to close or consolidate parishes. Regrettably, Archbishop Kelly’s tenure was marred by a great tragedy — the revelations in many cities and countries of widespread sexual abuse of children, mostly young boys, by pedophile priests. The problem was national, indeed international, but Louisville was a center of the abuse reports, and the archbishop’s clumsy handling of the allegations seemed to reflect a desire to protect the church’s institutional interests over the welfare of children. The scandal tarnished much of the church’s hierarchy. But the dimensions in Louisville were staggering — several hundred recognized victims of abuse by more than three dozen priests — and Archbishop Kelly’s failure to remove priests he knew or suspected had violated children and to alert police was appalling. Archbishop Kelly appropriately later recalled the crisis as his “greatest heartbreak” and termed himself “a very imperfect man among you.” As a man of faith, Archbishop Kelly would have been familiar with the admonition in Romans, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” That was a challenge for him, as for everyone, but the archbishop leaves a great amount of good on his ledger.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.