IMAGE: CNS photo/Kevin J. Parks, Catholic Review
By Erik Zygmont
BALTIMORE (CNS) — Mourners from
near and far, and all walks of life and various creeds, filled the Cathedral of
Mary Our Queen in Homeland March 28 for the funeral Mass of Cardinal William H.
Keeler, 14th archbishop of Baltimore.
Thirty prelates, including six
cardinals, and dozens of priests and deacons mourned Cardinal Keeler, who died
March 23 at 86, and commended his soul to God.
Dignitaries and officials came
to pay their respects, including Maryland Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr., Baltimore
County Executive Kevin B. Kamenetz, retired U.S. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski and
State Sen. James “Ed” DeGrange Sr.
In his closing remarks, Baltimore
Archbishop William E. Lori ranked Cardinal Keeler among the most illustrious of
his predecessors, including Archbishop John Carroll, the nation’s first
archbishop, Cardinal James Gibbons (1877-1921) and Cardinal Lawrence Shehan
(1961-1974).
While he was a churchman of the
highest stature, to be sure many came to Cardinal Keeler’s funeral to remember
a man who had simply never forgotten them.
“He always remembered who I was
and what church I came from,” said Jo Anne Harris, mother of Father Raymond
Harris, who was ordained by Cardinal Keeler and now is pastor of Holy Family
Parish in Randallstown. “You would always get a smile and a handshake, and you
knew it wasn’t phony. It was from the heart.”
Sheila Peter, a cathedral
parishioner, remembered bringing her son, Tommy, then 10, to see Cardinal
Keeler in the sacristy after a Good Friday veneration of the cross.
“I said, ‘Here’s a big fan of
yours,’ and the cardinal held his (zucchetto) over Tommy’s head and we took a
picture,” she told the Catholic Review, Baltimore’s archdiocesan news outlet.
In his homily, Cardinal Timothy
M. Dolan of New York described the “indefatigable, friendly, ever-unflappable
gentleman of faith, William Cardinal Keeler,” who took to heart a bit of advice
to priests from St. John Paul II:
“Love for Jesus and his church
must be the passion of your life.”
“He not only knew the quote, he
lived it and radiated it,” Cardinal Dolan said.
He and others acknowledged that
Cardinal Keeler’s passion overflowed, particularly in the ecumenical and
interreligious arena.
When he stepped down as
moderator for Jewish affairs for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a
position that included co-chairing key dialogue between the two faiths,
Cardinal Keeler asked Cardinal Dolan to take over, the latter recalled.
“I had rehearsed my ‘No,’ having
just arrived in New York and obviously preoccupied, but he described the
dialogue with such zeal and excitement, it sounded like he was inviting me to a
game at Camden Yards, with all the cold beer and hotdogs, kosher, I could eat,”
Cardinal Dolan said.
Cardinal Keeler’s “zeal and
excitement” for working with the Jewish community was reciprocated.
Before the funeral Mass, Rabbi
Abie I. Ingber, executive director of the Center for Interfaith Community
Engagement at Xavier University in Cincinnati, reflected on what the cardinal
had meant to him.
“We could start with the word
‘everything,'” Rabbi Ingber said, recalling how Cardinal Keeler had introduced
him to St. John Paul II in 1999, a meeting that “directed” the next 18 years of
his life, inspiring him to help build an exhibit on the saint and the Jewish
people, “A Blessing to One Another.”
Over the years, Rabbi Ingber and
Cardinal Keeler continued their correspondence and visits, and the rabbi visited
the cardinal, when his health was failing, at St. Martin’s Home for the Aged.
“I asked for his blessing and I
gave him mine,” Rabbi Ingber said.
As he looked around the
cathedral, he noted that his grandparents had been murdered in the Holocaust.
“Here I am, the grandchild of Jews
who were killed at the Holocaust, lovingly seated at the funeral of a cardinal
of the Catholic Church,” he said. “That’s a good world.”
The liturgy included a message
from Pope Francis, read by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to
the U.S., in which the pope expressed his condolences for the loss of the “wise
and gentle pastor.”
The readings and Gospel held
special meaning for the cardinal, who chose them himself.
In the first reading, from the
Book of Deuteronomy, Moses exhorts the Israelites to “love the Lord, your God,
with your whole heart, your whole being, and with your whole strength.”
The cardinal’s episcopal motto,
“Do the work of an evangelist,” came from the words of the second reading from
St. Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy: “But you, be self-possessed in all
circumstances; put up with hardship; perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill
your ministry.”
The Gospel described Jesus’ call
to his first apostles, Peter, Andrew, James and John, who left their work as
fishermen to follow him.
At the conclusion of Mass,
Archbishop Lori, the main celebrant, thanked members of the cardinal’s family
“for sharing Cardinal Keeler with us all these many years, and sharing him so
generously.”
He also thanked the Little
Sisters of the Poor, who operate St. Martin’s Home, “for welcoming him into
your home as you would welcome Christ.” The sisters received a standing
ovation.
The archbishop also reflected on
the last four or five years of Cardinal Keeler’s life, drawing a parallel
between it and the “grand silence,” a former seminary tradition that called for
silence from 9 p.m. every evening until Mass was celebrated the following
day.
It was not the most popular
rule, the archbishop remembered, “and rumor has it there were many infractions —
I wouldn’t know about that.”
Nevertheless, Archbishop Lori
said, the grand silence was valuable as a time of prayer and rest which “taught
the important lesson of preparing one’s mind and heart for the next day and the
important responsibilities each new day brings.”
Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien, grand
master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem and former archbishop
of Baltimore, offered the final commendation, and Cardinal Keeler’s eight
pallbearers carried his remains out of the cathedral, where deacons, priests,
bishops and cardinals chanted “Salve Regina.”
A funeral procession took his
remains to their final resting place, the Basilica of the National Shrine of
the Assumption in Baltimore.
– – –
Zygmont
is on the staff of the Catholic Review, the news outlet of the Archdiocese of
Baltimore.
– – –
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