THE KEHOE CENTER TORONTO CANADA

In the early seventies, I had two jobs in the diocese of Cleveland: dean of the graduate school at Saint John College and director of continuing education of the diocesan clergy. Clarence Issenmann, bishop of Cleveland at the time, thought that priests were really not working unless they held two jobs.

I liked both jobs but I preferred my job as dean because the students in the graduate division were serious about continuing their education. They could earn a master’s degree in elementary education, administration, counseling or religious education—a program designed by Father Paul Hritz which focused on the documents of the Second Vatican Council. Nuns and lay teachers attended graduate courses in great numbers, especially in religious education.

Although the college was originally founded for women religious and women lay teachers who taught in elementary schools, over the course of time men were admitted, especially priests who wanted to further their education. Unfortunately, the vast majority of priests in the diocese seemed antipathetic toward continuing education. After high school graduation they had taken two years of college, two years of philosophy, and four years of theology. Wasn’t that enough education for a diocesan priest? Those of us on the clergy education board tried to persuade them that it was not, but for the most part we were voices crying in the wilderness.

One day Bill Plato, a Cleveland priest who was continuing his education in Canada, called me from Toronto and told me of an innovative program in Ontario, Canada. The bishops of some twelve dioceses in Ontario designed a month-long continuing education program for priests and located it in an unused wing (called Kehoe) of a seminary in Toronto.

Every month one or two priests from each diocese would be relieved of their parish duties to spend time in the classroom reading the documents of the Second Vatican Council and taking refresher courses in scripture, moral theology, homiletics, and liturgy from first-rate professors. The students gathered in the evening to discuss what they had been taught. On Friday and Saturday evenings, they went to a movie, play, concert or ballet and later discussed the event.

On Sundays after concelebrating Mass, the priests were assigned to attend a service in selected Protestant churches that had ministers who delivered excellent sermons. In the evening the students would gather to critique the sermons they had heard.

We, the continuing education directors of Ohio, thought this program should be replicated in Ohio and should be located in Cleveland, Columbus, or Cincinnati, all large metropolitan areas. We decided to send John Lavelle, a Cleveland priest, to Kehoe for a month. He reported that he was greatly impressed with the program. So we wrote to the bishops of Ohio and were surprised that we did not get an enthusiastic response from them. We were beyond surprised; we were angry. So we requested a personal meeting with the bishops at which I was to present our petition.

Before we met we had a dress rehearsal by engaging a consultant to critique our presentation. The consultant was really hard on me. He said, “George, there’s too much anger in you. What the bishops are going to see is your anger and not the program you are presenting.” He was right. The next two practice sessions went well, and that evening I was on my best behavior and kept my temper in check. The bishops thanked us for our interest and concern.

We were elated but our spirits were dampened when we learned that the continuing education center would be located in Shelby, OH, in a building that formerly was the seminary for the missionary priests of the Sacred Heart who often provided priests to the Youngstown diocese.

Instead of bringing in top notch scholars the Shelby seminary priests became the faculty for our center. We ran two four-week programs and closed the program down.

Shelby was the worst possible place for what we wanted to do. Its population even today is only 8900. There are no art museums or playhouses there – just some office buildings, drug stores, and a movie theater. Our students came there late on Sunday night and left very early Friday evening. We could not blame them. Where was the opportunity for continuing education and for growth?

It would be easy to blame the Ohio bishops for this failure of imagination. But perhaps the failure lies with the directors of continuing education—myself included—for trying to make the Kehoe concept a reality before patiently taking the time to plant and nurture the seed.

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