"Papal adviser, people's priest." The Baltimore Sun, 8 November 1999.

Papal adviser, people's priest; Keeler: Baltimore's Roman Catholic leader keeps in touch with the daily life of the archdiocese as well the church's world affairs.

By John Rivera
Sun Staff

November 8, 1999

William H. Keeler, archbishop of Baltimore, one of seven U.S. cardinals, trusted adviser to Pope John Paul II and an internationally respected leader in interfaith dialogue, begins each weekday much like any parish priest.

As most of the city awakes, Keeler stands behind the altar of the Roman Catholic Basilica of the Assumption in downtown Baltimore, celebrating the daily Mass for anyone who enters: workers stopping before going to the office, members of his staff and the occasional homeless person wandering in from the weather.

It's no big deal, he said. His friend Cardinal John O'Connor does the same thing at the same time each day at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.

"I think my greatest joy comes when I'm able to celebrate the Eucharist with the people," he said.

Yesterday, Keeler celebrated the fifth anniversary of his elevation to the College of Cardinals with a Mass at the basilica. He is also marking 10 years as archbishop of Baltimore and 20 years since his ordination as bishop.

Since coming to Baltimore from Harrisburg, Pa., in 1989, Keeler has had to make painful decisions about closing and consolidating some city parishes with dwindling congregations, while trying to bolster enrollment at urban Catholic schools that increasingly serve poor and non-Catholic students. At the same time, he has addressed booming suburban growth by building parishes and schools, and has begun an unprecedented fund-rais ing campaign.

But the day- to-day might seem a bit more mundane. Keeler moves from meeting to meeting, from event to event, rarely stopping, even for meals -- he tends to work through those as well. It's all part and parcel of his stewardship of the 155 parishes, 76 schools, two seminaries and half-million Catholics that make up the Archdiocese of Baltimore Inc.

After Mass, Keeler puts on a black overcoat and beret to walk across Cathedral Street to the Catholic Center, a seven-story office building housing the archdiocese staff. The first order of business is an 8 a.m. meeting over breakfast -- coffee, juice and muffins -- with the directors of the Department of Management Services, which is responsible for developing and maintaining archdiocese property.

Shifting population

Development is constantly on the cardinal's mind. Last week, Keeler had been in Odenton to dedicate land for a desperately needed school, which will be called School of the Incarnation when it is completed in 2002. In the suburban counties surrounding Baltimore, thousands are on waiting lists for school places. To fund building projects, Keeler recently guided the Heritage of Hope capital campaign, which raised $133 million in pledges.

But many urban congregations are shrinking. That led to one of the most painful decisions of Keeler's tenure, the closure in 1995 of one city parish and the scaling back of 13 others. The schools, however, were left unscathed.

"Early on, we made a decision not to close schools," Keeler said, because they were providing education for low-income families.

To enable those families to afford a parochial education, Keeler, with the help of business leaders, has raised $10 million for his Partners in Excellence program for inner-city tuition assistance.

Midmorning is taken up with going through the day's correspondence. Keeler sits at a round table in his corner office on the seventh floor of the Catholic Center and summons Monsignor W. Francis Malooly, the archdiocesan chancellor who acts as a chief of staff, and the Rev. Lawrence A. Waudby, the cardinal's priest secretary. Patricia Nadolny, one of the cardinal's administrative secretaries, sits to his right, handing him color-coded folders and filing each piece of mail after Keeler has dealt with it.

Keeler's office is spacious, but far from ostentatious. The bookshelves are filled with leather-bound tomes, many of them with Latin titles containing official Vatican documents. A portrait of the nation's first bishop in its first diocese, John Carroll of Baltimore, hangs behind Keeler's desk and green leather chair.

In the day's correspondence are invitations to accept or decline. There's a letter from a woman now living in Laguna, Ca., who had cared for a priest Keeler was traveling with who had fallen ill in Spain. An education consultant wishes to volunteer his services.

There is a green folder of memos from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, which will meet this month in Washington. Keeler served as its president from 1992 to 1995, a key leadership post for the U.S. hierarchy.

High profile

Keeler is perhaps Baltimore's most visible religious leader, but he has an equally high national and international profile. He has made his mark in the ecumenical dialogue between Roman Catholics and other Christian denominations as well as with other religions.

"He's the key man in the United States among the U.S. bishops on ecumenism," said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, editor of the Jesuit weekly magazine America who has written extensively on the country's bishops. "Over at the Vatican, he is a key adviser to the pope on ecumenical issues, especially on relations with Jews and Protestants."

Keeler's interest in interfaith affairs began when he was a seminarian in Rome, when he visited the site of a massacre by Nazis and then visited Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam. As a young priest attending the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s, the church's shift to more openness to non-Christian religions made an impression.

It was as bishop of Harrisburg that he emerged as a key figure in the Catholic-Jewish dialogue. Former U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, whose Nazi connections had just been revealed, visited the pope at the Vatican in 1987, enraging Jewish leaders. The tensions threatened a meeting between the pope and Jewish leaders in Miami later that year.

" Keeler was instrumental, through some very tense negotiations, in solving the hard feelings," said Rabbi A. James Rudin, interreligious affairs expert for the American Jewish Committee. "He made it very clear to the Vatican why Jews were offended and upset by the kind of reception Waldheim received. He also showed to the Jewish community that our feelings were being conveyed at the highest level.

"I think when the history is written, he will be one of the architects of not only Jewish-Christian relations in the United States, but globally as well," Rudin said.

Keeler is also heavily involved in the Catholic-Orthodox Christian dialogue. Through his influence, the international Catholic-Orthodox dialogue will come to Maryland next summer for its first meeting in the Western Hemisphere.

The Very Rev. Constantine Monios, dean of the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation in Mount Vernon, recalled that last week Keeler paid his church an ecumenical visit.

"At the end of the liturgy, he came into the church. My congregation gave him a standing ovation," Monios said. "Orthodox don't normally applaud in church, but it was thunderous. I would say he is one of the few Catholic prelates who has a deep knowledge of Orthodoxy."

'Constantly working'

The afternoon finds Keeler on the road. He normally drives himself, but with a tight schedule, Waudby is at the wheel. Keeler uses the car time to read memos, sign papers and make calls on a cell phone about the size of a credit card.

"He's constantly working. He doesn't have a regular day off. He might take a few hours here and there, go to a museum or whatever," Malooly said. "The work energizes him."

There is a new Catholic Charities building to dedicate in North Baltimore. Keeler pronounces his blessing, sprinkling the lobby with holy water. "I'm going to bless the elevator now," he said to the laughter of the staff, who know how slow it is. "There's a sign on it now that says, 'Please take the stairs.' "

Back in the car for a quick trip to the intensive care unit of Mercy Medical Center to visit two patients. Then, over to St. Vincent de Paul parish downtown to check on an ailing priest, the Rev. Casimir Pugevicius.

Then, it's back to the office for more meetings and a check of afternoon fax traffic. Keeler gets a daily briefing from the Vatican Information Service, which he reads carefully. He travels to Rome, which is almost like a hometown, about four times a year for various meetings, usually staying only for a couple days, long enough to conclude business. Once, he stayed only for a day, barely long enough for a plate of pasta.

"Barely," he said, "but I got one."

On this particular day, Keeler has to leave the office early to catch a plane for Los Angeles, where he will meet with Hollywood directors, producers and screenwriters as part of the U.S. bishops' campaign, Renewing the Mind of the Media, an effort to combat sex and violence on the screen and airwaves. He'll stay for two days before catching the red-eye back to Baltimore and a full slate of weekend activities.

He'll be arriving at 5: 30 a.m. Saturday. Does he need somebody to pick him up, his staff asked. No, Keeler said. "I'll take a cab." Just like any parish priest.