Betrayed: an American Catholic Priest Speaks Out: Modern Heresies Exposed

By Raymond A. Kevane

Betrayed can have this impact on the readers life because it presents three main elements: 1) the doctrinal/catechetical truths left with the Apostles by Christ Himself,

2) the history of the Catholic Church from the time of Christ, and

3) the life story of a Catholic priest, both in his active years and after he was laicized and married.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468594331

Raymond A. Kevane

About the Author Born and raised on a farm in Northwest Iowa, Raymond A. Kevane has a Licentiate in Theology and a Doctorate in Canon Law, both acquired in Rome, Italy. He traveled extensively in Europe, Latin America. and the USA. Among many responsibilities, he was National Director of Papal Volunteers for Latin America (PAVLA), Chancellor of his diocese, and a self-employed career counselor – he helped people in all his endeavors. Kevane is also the author of “Employment Power: Take Control of your Career and he has written numerous articles for the Business Journal in both Portland, OR and Seattle, WA. He and his wife reside in McAllen, Texas.

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© 2012 by Raymond A. Kevane. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 07/20/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-9432-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-9433-1 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012907221

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CONTENTS

An Act Of Conscience

The Title Of This Book

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Introduction

PART I

Chapter 2

My Family Tree

Chapter 3

Life On The Farm

Chapter 4

My College Years

Chapter 5

Loras College—

Sophomore To Senior Years

PART II

Chapter 6

The Trip To Rome, Italy

Chapter 7

My First Real Understanding

Of Evil In The World

Chapter 8

The North American College

Chapter 9

First Year Tour Of Europe—

Summer Of 1951

Chapter 10

Second-, Third-, And Fourth-Year

Studies In Theology

Chapter 11

Bicycle Tour Through France—

Summer 1952

Chapter 12

The Shrine Of Our Lady Of Lourdes

Chapter 13

End Of The Tour And Back To

Class—3Rd Year Of Theology

Chapter 14

Preparation For Work

As A Priest

Chapter 15

Travel To Britain—

Summer Of 1953

Chapter 16

My Ordination To The Priesthood—

December 19, 1953

Chapter 17

Completion Of Theology Studies—

Spring 1954

Chapter 18

Full Preparation For

The Priesthood

PART III

Chapter 19

Canon Law Studies—1954-1957

Chapter 20

Return To The Sioux

City Diocese

Chapter 21

A Specialized Duty—

Chaplain Of An Unwed

Mothers’ Home

PART IV

Chapter 22

My Move To Chicago As National

Director Of Pavla

Chapter 23

Chicago 1964 To 1966—

Building The Papal Volunteer

Program

Chapter 24

My Introduction To The Heresy Of

Modernism And False Ecumenism

Chapter 25

Tours Of Latin America—Visiting

The Volunteers On The Job

Chapter 26

End Of First Tour Of Latin America:

Reshaping Pavla

Chapter 27

The ‘Ugly American’

Bishop And Priest

Chapter 28

My Tours Of Latin America—

Continued

Chapter 29

Confrontation With The Enemy

Chapter 30

Chicago And Cardinal Cody

Chapter 31

Move To Uscc Headquarters,

Washington, D.C.

Chapter 32

The United States Catholic

Conference And U.S. Politics

Chapter 33

The Latin America Bureau And The

Papal Volunteer Offices

Chapter 34

Heresies And Weaknesses In The

American Catholic Church

Chapter 35

My Written Report To The Bishops

Of The United States

Chapter 36

The U.S. Bishops

Chapter 37

Ugly Americanism, Heresies Of

Americanism And Modernism,

Politics

Chapter 38

"We’ve Lost!—You Had Just As Well

Go Back To Your Diocese"

Chapter 39

The Forces Which Led Me

To Seek Laicization

PART V

Chapter 40

Moving To The West And

Adjusting To A New Life

Chapter 41

Developing A New Career

Chapter 42

The Self-Directed Careersm

Chapter 43

Ongoing Experiences With

Modernism And Americanism

Chapter 44

Heresies Of Modernism

And Americanism Among Catholic

Jews

Chapter 45

Our Visit To Rome And Italy

PART VI

Chapter 46

A Late Dawning Awareness

Chapter 47

Remembering The

Papal Volunteers

PART VII

Chapter 48

It’s Easy To Be A (Protestant)

Chapter 49

The Church Today Is Severely

Weakened

Chapter 50

A Pattern Of Disbelief

Chapter 51

Creating God In Our Own Image

Chapter 52

The Impact Of Heresies On The Roman

Catholic Church In The U.S.

Chapter 53

Statistics From The Catholic

Radio Association

Chapter 54

Indissolubility Of Marriage

Chapter 55

Importance Of The Mass

Chapter 56

The Signs Of The Times

Chapter 57

The True Doctrines Of The

Catholic Church

APPENDICES

Appendix-A

Full Text:

Memorandum To Bishops’

Committee Regarding Pavla

Appendix-B

Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae

Appendix-C

Pascendi Dominici Gregis

AN ACT OF CONSCIENCE

On July 1, 1969, I presented my controversial report to the subcommittee of bishops to whom I reported as National Director of the Papal Volunteers for Latin America. From that point on I became conscious that I had someone following me wherever I went for the next five or six years—in Washington, D.C., in Sioux City, Iowa, when I returned there, and finally for a few years after I moved to the west coast. And I received one veiled death threat.

I was followed in such a way that I could not fail to notice that it was happening. In other words, whoever was behind it almost certainly wanted me to know. It was, therefore, an effort to convey a message to me—at least so I hoped. In the midst of all this, while I was waiting for a reaction from the bishops to my report, my telephone was tapped, and, although I reported my concern to the telephone company, they would neither confirm nor deny the tapping. The faint noises which had become a part of every phone conversation, after a few days, stopped entirely—which proved, to me at least, that my phone had indeed been tapped. A truly frightening incident occurred just a few days after my report to the bishops’ committee. A very friendly person approached, clearly presenting himself as having my best interests at heart. I had known him for simply a matter of days—not more than a week or so. After a lengthy discussion of my situation, he gave me what was ostensibly a friendly warning: I needed to be very careful, because I could be assassinated; for example, he said, I could end up as an accident on a lonely country road.

Harry Truman, when he was president, said If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.

I did not know then and I do not know to this day whether these things (being followed, tapping of my telephone, the death warning) were done by friends or foes. Friends, i.e. good churchmen, might have been trying to dissuade me from going public with the things I knew. If that were true, it would be a matter of ‘good’ people stooping to actions in which the ‘end justifies the means.’ If they were ‘good,’ would they not have simply talked to me about it?

If they were my enemies, their actions served as a warning to me to stay away from the press or any kind of public exposé; if they had seen me visiting a reporter, it is easy to imagine what they might have done to me.

Regardless of any fears anyone might have had along that line, I had no intention of going public with any of my knowledge, because I was taken up with the misguided loyalty which was prevalent at the time. To me such an action on my part would have put the Church in a bad light, and might have developed into widespread negative publicity.

I am now in my eighties. The ambience is vastly different now than it was then when I was in my early thirties. I had been appointed to the international responsibilities of the PAVLA program at a very young age—about twelve years ordained—because of the three remarkable volunteers who went to the Amazon in Brazil in less than a year after I was appointed Diocesan Director of the Papal Volunteers for Latin America in Sioux City, Iowa. At that time, bishops were rarely criticized. In the forty years during which I have watched the Catholic Church wax and wane, the pedophile priest scandal hit our society and even a certain number of bishops were caught in pedophile activities. But the bishops were criticized the way they handled, or failed to handle, the priests who were caught in those activities.

These days, things have changed dramatically: it is rare that one does not find a pejorative story about some bishop in some magazine or newspaper about once a week (my guess). What I have written, therefore, does not seem at all out of line in this day and age.

Moreover, the newly codified Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church is much more direct than the previous one in the way it encourages the members of the Church to make public important criticisms they have of the way the authority in the Church is handling their responsibilities, particularly someone like myself with advanced degrees and extraordinary experience. The pertinent Canon is quoted in the first pages of this book.

However, my primary reason for writing this book is to respond to the dictates of my conscience. After these many years I know now that the evil I saw is not restricted to the relatively few people I dealt with in those days. Since I have seen first hand so many things which bring attention to how two principal heresies—Modernism and Americanism—have made enormous inroads into the faith of far too many members of the Catholic Church—Cardinals, Bishops, Clergy, Religious and Laity—bringing change to the eternal, unchanging doctrine which Jesus Christ left with His Church. This must be stopped or many Catholics will lose their souls.

THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK

The heresy of Americanism is so deeply entrenched among the U.S. Bishops that they allowed a lay apostolate program initiated by a Pope to die because they failed to give it the support it needed and deserved. This will become clear as this book unfolds. Hence, the title Betrayed.

DEDICATION

It is a great honor and privilege for me to dedicate this book to those on this earth whom I admire much more than most: The Papal Volunteers for Latin America—those who served before, during and after my tenure as National Director of the program. There were hundreds of them in nineteen countries during the five years when I was in charge. I don’t know how many there were during the year or two before I arrived, and I don’t know how many in the year the program lasted after I resigned. I believe all of them came into the program with a spirit of adventure, but, knowing a great many of them as I did, I am certain that all of them joined the program because of their deep faith and their intense desire to be involved in the work of the Church.

I wish also to dedicate this book to the many Diocesan PAVLA Directors who were working hard to recruit volunteers and develop the means of supporting them during their service in Latin America. By the time I resigned, more than 100 had been appointed. And the dedication extends also to those bishops who saw the program as truly a work of the Church.

A special mention, very important to me, goes to the Lay Advisory Board in Sioux City, two attorneys and an insurance agent—all chosen because they had the special recommendation of their pastors—who worked with me as we planned the diocesan program. They worked with me without compensation, and I do not recall that they even received expenses. They were a dedicated group. Probably none of the four of us will ever forget how we felt when, after a well-attended presentation in Fort Dodge, Iowa, three who were to be our first volunteers—two men and a woman, a teacher, an electrician and a nurse—worked their way through the crowd to the stage to tell us they wanted to join. After a few months of preparation, they were assigned to the Archdiocese of Manaus on the Amazon River in northern Brazil. Their service was exemplary. That initial success led me to be chosen as the National Director.

In that same context, I know that other diocesan directors had advisory boards who deserve special mention, and I myself, after a year or so, had a twelve member National Planning Board, including one of those who had worked with me in Sioux City. This latter group—comprised of returned Papal Volunteers, diocesan directors, members of local diocesan advisory boards, Latin American laity and priests, and one carefully chosen bishop—also served without compensation, but, as I recall, they did receive expenses.

The Papal Volunteers for Latin America visibly captured the imaginations of untold numbers of people who wanted to see it flourish. The program therefore was a danger to those, who, for their own nefarious reasons, did not want to see the power of the lay apostolate unleashed in support of the Church and her growth. Since these lay volunteers were supported by the bishop in whose diocese they originated, and since they were received and supported by the bishop of the diocese in the country to which they were assigned, they became a powerful force to preserve the structure of the Catholic Church as it has existed for many centuries. Foreseeing this, those forces in the U.S. and Latin America who wanted to topple and replace the structure of the Church in the western hemisphere saw fit to destroy the Papal Volunteer program. There will be much more on this subject as the book progresses.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There is an almost endless list of those who gave me unflagging support throughout my twenty years in the active priesthood. Above all else, of course, I owe everything that I am and that I have to my parents whose devotion to the Church and to their faith was total, even in the midst of and throughout the depth of the Great Depression and the worst of its aftermath.

Two of my brothers have always been outstanding role models. They are Monsignor Eugene Kevane, my oldest brother, who died in 1996, and my second oldest brother, Philip Kevane, who is remarkably active at the age of 93, ten years older than I. I am the youngest of six.

My wife Lillian and I—for me there is no doubt—were destined for each other from all eternity. Through a series of events which only God could have engineered, we were available to each other after the dreadful events in Washington, D.C. and after Pope Paul VI granted my request for laicization with permission to marry. With her help I was able to accept the suffering I had to bear, to forgive and to pray for all those at whose hands I had suffered.

John Cardinal Cody, Archbishop of Chicago, in charge of one of the largest dioceses in the world, always took time to talk with me, and, toward the end, used his authority to have the PAVLA program taken away from the Latin America Bureau and established in an independent Lay Apostolate agency. Unfortunately he failed. He was pitted against Cardinal Dearden, Archbishop of Detroit and President of the U.S. Conference of Bishops at the time, who had chosen Bishop Joseph Bernardin, Director of the USCC, who in turn supported Father Colonnese, Director of the Latin America Bureau of which PAVLA was a part. The day finally came when Cardinal Cody called me and told me, We’ve lost. You had just as well return to your diocese. As the reader will see, I did as he suggested.

Not too much later, Cardinal Cody died in agony, excoriated and lied about because he was devoted to the Pope and to traditional doctrine. After his death, because of his extensive suffering, he was described as a modern day martyr, and someone said about him: God certainly knows how to put the finishing touches on a special soul.

Monsignor Claire Dwyer, PAVLA diocesan director in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, was a good friend of mine. After the presentation of my report to the bishops’ subcommittee, (see Part IV, Chapter 35) I visited him. For the first time since my move to Washington D.C., I told him the whole story including the report to the bishops. He whistled and said, You’ve pushed at the power tower. He meant that I couldn’t possibly win, and of course he was right.

The Archbishop of Mexico City in 1964-1969 gave me every support I requested, including personally dedicating the Hogar Interamericano, our own language training center for the volunteers on the way to their assignments. His own personal representative was Father Hector Samperio, a prince of a priest who was responsible for most of the successes of PAVLA in Mexico.

The Archbishop of Salvador, in northeast Brazil, was a saintly bishop among generally holy bishops. Once I slept on a (very uncomfortable) couch in his residence; another time, when he was gone on a trip, he invited me to sleep in his (very comfortable) bed. Most Latin American bishops offered me their guest rooms, but in most instances I had already been offered lodging where the volunteers were stationed. An interesting comparison: I was never invited to stay in the residence of a U.S. bishop.

The contributions of John Muldoon and Madeline Creason—

both former Papal Volunteers who gave additional time in PAVLA’s National Office—are described in Part IV, Ch. 48 of this book.

I deeply respect the Office of Bishop and bishops themselves as successors to the Apostles.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Dying Man on a Street in Portland, Oregon

On an occasion that I will never forget (1973/74), a year or so after my wife and I were married before the Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon, I was walking on a street in downtown Portland one afternoon, when I saw a man who had collapsed on the street about 30 feet or so ahead of me. His eyes were visibly fixed on me and followed me as I walked. The crowd around him seemed to part appropriately so he could watch me—or so that I could watch him. I was very conscious of what I had learned in my years of study in Theology and Canon Law: Even though I was laicized, I had the authority and the obligation to give a dying person the last rites and to give at least conditional absolution to him or her. Convinced that this man was dying, I pronounced the words of conditional absolution as I moved toward him. When I finished, he smiled, continued to look at me, and died; I saw the vacant look come into his eyes. I am convinced as he lay dying he was given the knowledge that I was a priest and knew that I was giving him absolution.

I hope and believe it is true that I helped this man save his soul. I take deep and personal satisfaction knowing that I was able to do the same on other occasions for another ten or twelve dying people.

This all began nearly 60 years ago when I was ordained a Catholic priest in Rome, Italy, on December 19, 1953, in the course of four years of study of Theology. Twenty years later, in 1972, at my own request, I was laicized by Pope Paul VI with permission to marry. The reasons for my request will be disclosed later in this book.

Everything written in this book is intended to edify, not to denigrate. It is written in the spirit of deepest respect and love for the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. This includes the Pope, the bishops and clergy, the religious, and the broad base of the faithful, and including those whose consciences are such that if they knew the true intent of Christ, they would become Catholics.

This book may be well characterized as my memoirs, but also as an exposé. With fifty nine years, as I write, since I was ordained a Catholic priest, fifty eight years since I earned my Licentiate in Theology and fifty five years since I was awarded my Doctorate in Canon Law, I have seen a great deal and, while I have seen so many, many good people, religious, priests, bishops and cardinals, I believe I can say without hesitation, I have seen it all (almost). At any rate, I would never have attempted to write this book unless I felt I could shed some light on the state of the Catholic Church in the United States in the last half of the 20th century and the early 21st century. In doing so, I hope to help strengthen those whose faith may be shaken by current events. I hope that what I write can to some degree reverse the harm that has befallen the Catholic Church from the time that I was a little boy until now when I am in the twilight of my life.

As the reader moves through the book, he or she will find that my background includes the elements which the Code of Canon Law requires for the Christian faithful to express their opinions on Church matters to the authorities:

According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, [the Christian faithful] have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons. (Canon 212, §3)

During my more than eighty years, I’ve had a breadth and depth of education and experience which many do not have. I would never trade it for something else, although, as is clearly portrayed, my life had a balance of difficult occurrences as well as miraculously positive ones.

In the theology of the Catholic Church, a priest is ordained forever, (in the liturgy of ordination, the ordaining bishop says to each candidate, Thou art a priest forever, according to the order of Melchisedech) and that priesthood cannot be taken away. This sacrament, like others, imprints an indelible mark on the soul which in heaven will lead to greater glorification, and in hell to greater degradation. I therefore explicitly retain the power to confect and administer the sacraments. As a matter of obedience, however, I am generally restricted from doing so.

Since the day of my ordination to the priesthood, I had embedded into me and have carried within me that specific Sanctifying Grace which is unique to the Sacrament of Orders.

*    *    *

I’d like to proceed chronologically through five different segments of my life from early life on a farm in Iowa, through college and seminary education. I’ll describe my life as a priest, including my additional experiences in Europe, my duties in diocesan offices, followed by national and international responsibilities. Later, my life as a laicized married priest, starting when I was forty two years of age, added a new perspective to my many years of experience with the Church.

Parts I to V deal with five segments of my life. Parts VI-&VII are conclusions which I hope the reader will find enlightening and useful. Part IV has a special prominence in that it deals with the Papal Volunteers for Latin America, one of the very most important programs of the Lay Apostolate in the history of the Church, brought into being by a Pope and gaining a special prominence. And it was my honor to be appointed the director of that international lay apostolate program and my duty to defend against its enemies.

In the course of my local, national and international duties, I encountered two principal heresies which are in the process of trying to modify the unchangeable doctrine of the Church. They are the Heresies of Americanism and of Modernism. I will expose these as we come across them. The Papal Encyclicals which first identified these heresies are given in full in Appendix B and Appendix C of this book. They merit our study so that we will be better prepared to support the doctrines which Christ left with His Church.

*    *    *

I love the Catholic Church. And as my far-from-perfect spiritual life becomes—as I sincerely hope—stronger and I become closer to Christ, the Trinity, and the Blessed Mother, my love of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ grows stronger with the passing years. Now, in the later years of my life, I feel the obligation in conscience to point out to my brothers and sisters in Christ—bishops, clergy, religious and laity—how the Catholic Church in the United States, through the actions and inaction of its imperfect representatives of Christ, has drifted grievously from the directives which Christ Himself imposed and which the Popes in Rome have faithfully preserved and expounded over the centuries. I believe I have the right to do so and the obligation to do so because of my education, because of what I have become, and because of what I have seen and experienced, as will be recounted.

"Your Brother was Absolutely Right.

We Should Have Listened to Him."

These words were spoken by Cardinal Umberto Madeiros, Archbishop of Boston, to my brother, Rev. Msgr. Eugene Kevane, within two years after I resigned my position as national director of the Papal Volunteers for Latin America. On July 1,1969 when I presented my report to the committee of bishops who oversaw the Papal Volunteer program, before he was a Cardinal, Bishop Madeiros, Bishop of Brownsville, was a member of that committee. As my brother explained it, The Cardinal ate humble pie, in saying that the bishops should have listened to me.

When I learned at the time of the meeting in 1969 that Bishop Medeiros could not attend, my heart sank, because he was a strong bishop and unquestionably loyal both to the Pope and to Church Doctrine. His absence was to have a massive effect on the outcome. This is one of the many factors which caused me to entitle this book "Betrayed", because in spite of his belated insight (and, I assume, the insight of an unknown number of others), the Papal Volunteer program was allowed to fade from history.

After I resigned my position as National Director of the Papal Volunteers for Latin America and returned to my own Diocese of Sioux City, Bishop Joseph M. Mueller supported me fully, appointed me Chancellor of the diocese, and he assured me at the time the priests of the diocese also supported me. A few months later, I found this to be absolutely true. As Chancellor of the diocese, I was in the middle of a meeting of priests. I don’t recall the purpose of the meeting, but at some point one of the priests brought up a sidebar and asked me a few questions about the PAVLA fiasco I had undergone in Washington, D.C. He concluded by saying (I’ll never forget his words), The bishops really hung you out to dry. The rest of the priests in that group clearly agreed with him. What that priest said suggested the title of this book. Rightly or wrongly, by that time, because of the way they handled the pedophile priest crisis, the bishops had gained a reputation as not being completely loyal to or supportive of their priests, but, to save their own skins were willing to play politics and condemn the priests who were charged without giving them much of a hearing. The bishops were criticized by the Vatican for the way they handled it, and were reprimanded by the conference of Religious Superiors for mishandling the problem.

A practical way to describe the Heresy of Americanism is to say that, in the eyes of such a heretic, the Constitution of the United States is at least equal to, if not superior to, the doctrines which Jesus Christ established with the Apostles to safeguard for all time in His Church. This translates, in a burst of political correctness, into the thought that alleged pedophile priests are to be condemned without any presumption of innocence (the concept of ‘zero tolerance’).

The title "Betrayed" is more than appropriate because the events surrounding the demise of the Papal Volunteer program—which was an example of the lay apostolate at the highest level—represents betrayal at several levels.

First of all, Christ Himself called for the involvement of the laity in the work of the Church—in their families, in the holiness of their lives within society, and they worked shoulder to shoulder with the Apostles, the first bishops and clergy in the Early Church. The laity were called by Christ, not by the hierarchy as is commonly supposed. Therefore, the (in)action of the bishops in letting the Papal Volunteer program die was a betrayal of Christ Himself.

Second, since the Church is in fact the Mystical Body of Christ and carries within it at all times all the commands of Christ, there is the on-going requirement for the laity to infuse their personal holiness into their families, their work-day world and their social life. The bishops’ action in allowing the Papal Volunteer program to be terminated was a betrayal of the Church.

Third, the Papal Volunteer program was initiated by Pope Paul VI, the Vicar of Christ, whose actions were of compelling importance. I’m sure the bishops gave no thought to this fact as they failed to support perhaps the most important activity of the Lay Apostolate of all time—described as such by the Apostolic Delegate at the time that the PAVLA headquarters was in Chicago (1964-1966). It is speculation on my part, but I am as sure as I can be that, in professional solidarity, the conference of bishops conformed to the wishes of a fellow bishop, Joseph Bernardin, who is sufficiently described in the text of this book as an anti-Church pedophile. In so doing, they betrayed their own Pope.

Fourth, the bishops betrayed Vatican Council II, some of whom were perhaps present during some of its sessions. The Council presents the Lay Apostolate as a most important element in the overall work of the Church in leading God’s people to holiness.

Fifth, hundreds of Papal Volunteers individually spent three years in an assigned diocese in nineteen countries of Latin America. I have no idea of their individual holiness, but I am sure, from my own personal observation, that many (most) of them were daily communicants, giving the finest kind of example to the teachers, electicians, doctors, nurses, etc. among whom they worked. The bishops of Latin America in whose dioceses the volunteers worked uniformly gave them high praise. Representative of many Latin American bishops, the President of the Chilean Conference of Bishops, put his praise into writing and sent it to me at the PAVLA National Office. Clearly, the U.S. bishops betrayed those wondrous volunteers who did such marvelous work.

Sixth, it is obvious that the Catholic Church in Latin America has been betrayed by our bishops, in that the Catholics of Latin America—bishops, clergy, religious, laity—were looking forward to an entirely new and different relationship between the religious people of the two cultures.

Seventh, I must confess that for years I, as the National Director of the PAVLA program, have felt betrayed by the bishops when they failed to support me and the program, ignoring all the evidence I had provided to them, taking two years, after PAVLA was disbanded, to acknowledge that I . . . had been absolutely right, and they should have listened to him. That helped, of course, but it did not take away the fact that they had failed to support me in a most important undertaking and allowed the work the Volunteers and I had done to fade into obscurity.

What I Hope This Book Can Accomplish

In the following pages, I will present in chronological order my lifetime of experiences, beginning with the 160 acre farm where my five siblings and I were born and raised in Northwest Iowa, through twenty three years of formal schooling which ended with a doctorate in Rome, Italy, three years after I was ordained a priest.

You will read about the many simultaneous responsibilities I was given after my return to my diocese. They were not an overload (as some have said) but were a personal pleasure and, relatively minor in terms of responsibility and work when compared, in their totality, with what I consider the culmination of my priestly career: National Director of the Papal Volunteers for Latin America, chronicled in Part IV of this book. This responsibility provided me the intensely pleasurable and spiritually uplifting experience of working with many sincerely devout men and women of this country and sending them to work among and for the sincerely devout bishops, religious and laity of the Catholic Church in as many as nineteen countries of Latin America. At that same time, I wrestled with evil. I saw and worked among bishops and priests who were completely enslaved by the Heresies of Americanism and Modernism—and worse, as the reader will see. And I wrestled with specific bishops, priests and laity who bent every effort to destroying the Papal Volunteer program, because they feared it would interfere with their own intention to implant a Marxist philosophy into the Church in all countries of Latin America.

There are a number of things which I hope the publishing of this book can accomplish:

1.   The hundreds of Papal Volunteers who gave three years of their lives in service to the Church in Latin America deserve to emerge from the obscurity into which the lack of support by the bishops has thrust them. Not long ago, in speaking to a very prominent convert to Catholicism, I mentioned the Papal Volunteers for Latin America, and he said, What’s that? Since the PAVLA program was what it was, it seems to me it should be mentioned in every convert training program as a prime example of the Apostolate of the Laity. I urge every bishop who may read this book to promote awareness of the Papal Volunteers and of what they accomplished. Their incredible accomplishment is described in Part VI of this book.

2.   Hopefully this book can help those U.S. Bishops who lean toward the Heresies of Americanism and Modernism to recognize the error of their ways and return to complete loyalty to the Vicar of Christ in the Vatican.

3.   Many Catholics have lost their way (see studies in Part VII, Chapters 52, 53, and 54). They have lost their belief in the Real Presence, fail to attend Mass as required, support abortion and artificial contraception, believe they can validly divorce and remarry, and many other aberrations. I pray that this book may provide some of the grace required to help them overcome the Modernist, Americanist forces which pull them away from the Eternal Truths which the Catholic Church gives them and bring them back to the practice of the True Faith.

4.   There are non-Catholics who are openly seeking the Truth. I hope that this book can help some of them to make the final decision of conversion to the Catholic Church.

5.   Pope Benedict XVI recently established an office in the Vatican called the "New Evangelization" which is intended to re-kindle the practice of the Catholic Faith in every country of the world. The success of the Papal Volunteer program as described in Part IV of this book can serve as an example of how the Pope’s New Evangelization program can be achieved.

PART I

BIRTH TO COLLEGE

GRADUATION:

1928 TO 1946

CHAPTER 2

My Family Tree

My grandfather—my father’s father—some said, was a genius. An Irish immigrant from Dingle, Ireland, Tom Kevane came through Ellis Island as a young man, worked his way to Northwest Iowa, got married, started his family, and acquired many hundreds of acres of land which no one wanted. He chose all low land, given to flooding, leaving large ponds after heavy rains. He foresaw what no one else did: That the land could be tiled so that the flooded land would quickly drain, leaving behind some of the most fertile fields in that part of Iowa.

I remember him for the first time when he was thought to be in his nineties. But he didn’t know exactly how old he was. I remember nothing of his wife—she was ‘bald as an egg’ someone said. I don’t remember anything of my other two grandparents on my mother’s side. I know only that they immigrated from Germany from the small farming town of Steinefrenz, less than 100 miles north of Frankfurt and perhaps100 miles east of the city of Cologne.

When my Irish grandfather came through Ellis Island, he neither spoke nor wrote English. When he gave his name in the original Irish, someone wrote it as ‘Tom Kevane,’ a name that usually came into English as Cavanaugh or Kavanagh. But as it was written then and as it is written now, it is pronounced within the family as Kuh-ván. We think that is the original Gaelic pronunciation.

My parents, Michael Kevane (no middle name) and Sarah Agnes Distel were both born in northwest Iowa within a few months of each other in 1886, he a second generation Irish-American, she a second generation German-American. When they were married, an Irish/German union was looked upon with great disfavor, but they weathered that and became an outstanding and respected couple in the communities they related to: 1) Storm Lake, the Buena Vista County seat and home to St Mary’s Parish to which they belonged; 2) Rembrandt, a very small town about five miles NE from the farm; and 3) Truesdale, an even smaller town about two to three miles SSE of the farm. Storm Lake is10 miles south from the farm and was a long journey every week to Sunday Mass, first by horse and buggy (which I don’t remember), then by Model T Ford, then by Model A Ford… and so on. My parents were both devout Catholics by family tradition and birth and they did their best to pass that on to all six of their children. They succeeded, apparently totally. My mother had an eighth grade education, my father not quite that much. They taught us by their personal example which was no less than outstanding, and by ensuring that we studied and memorized the Baltimore Catechism.

[When many years later in Chicago I told a Modernist, Feminist nun that after four years of Theology and three years of Canon Law, all in Rome, my faith remained precisely the same as they had taught me as a child. She was very skeptical. The full training I had received in Rome simply expanded on all they had taught me and gave me the Scriptural, Traditional, Theological, Philosophical and Rational basis for those truths. She retorted, rather testily, That’s impossible. The Church has changed. Which meant, of course, if she was talking about doctrine, that she herself was into heresy. It’s generally accepted doctrine that Divine Revelation to mankind was closed with the death of the last Apostle, and that body of revealed truth was given to the Church to guard. It was this that prompted St. Paul to entreat Timothy, O Timothy, guard the Deposit entrusted to you. (1 Timothy 6:20)]

The Farm

Shortly after my parents’ wedding, my grandfather sold one of his parcels of land to them. Later, because of the Depression my parents couldn’t make the payments and he simply deeded it over to them, as a gift. It was a farm of 160 acres with a house, barn, and several other outbuildings. My mother was 42 years of age when I was born on Dec. 18, 1928, something of an afterthought, she often said.

Education

All of my siblings and I attended Scott Center Grade and Junior High School, about 1½ miles from our house. We walked, therefore, three miles every school day. I remember one day when there had been a foot or more of snow when my father walked ahead to break a trail for the youngest three of us.

The first five years of my education were spent in this one-room school house, which consisted in one classroom for eight grades of students, and a one-room apartment for the teacher. She was on premises for five days each week and stayed the weekend or went home depending on circumstances. The school building was centered on one acre of land, had two outhouses, no internal facilities; I have no memory at all about availability of water. The school closed in 1939 at the end of my fifth year, although it still stands as a voting precinct.

To summarize: My formal education began in a one room school house in Scott Township, Buena Vista County, Iowa, and ended with a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Gregorian University in Rome, Italy, staffed by the leading Jesuits of the time, and a doctorate in Canon Law from the Lateran University in Rome, Italy, staffed by professors selected from the Vatican City State. These were two of the most prestigious universities in the world, and if I’m not mistaken after all these years, they still are. My formal education spanned twenty three years. Scott Center school produced three doctoral students. Oddly enough, the other two were my oldest brother Eugene, and my third youngest brother Clement.

My Vocation

I began my four years of high school in the fall of 1942 at Rembrandt High School. We used to say facetiously that there were 100 people in Rembrandt when we happened to be in town. Actually it probably had a few hundred residents, as it does to this day.

We were the only Catholic family for miles around. It was a heavily Lutheran community and, as I recall, we were treated as a family with great respect and friendship without exception. Until my senior year in high school, I had not a single Catholic school mate. There were two Catholic students in my senior year.

I believe I developed my determination to study for the priesthood sometime during my grade school years, perhaps initially triggered by the fact that my oldest brother, Eugene, was sent to Rome to study for the priesthood when I was five years old. I was nine when he came home, and he was a complete stranger to me at that time. The intention of becoming a priest stayed quietly and consciously in my mind throughout grade school and high school, during all the work on the farm.

It didn’t occur to me to discuss my plans with any of my family until my Junior or Senior year when the question came up about what I would do after graduation. We then talked to my brother the priest, then to our pastor at St. Mary’s parish in Storm Lake, and finally to the bishop. I never wavered in my plans.

CHAPTER 3

Life on the Farm

There was/is no better place to grow up than on a farm. After all these years, I am convinced that this is true. It was a great blessing for me. We were isolated enough to simply live by our own moral values, even as we had friendly and respectful neighbors with whom we could, and did, interact.

Early to bed and early to rise, makes one healthy, wealthy and wise. There is a grain of truth in that old saying, but it needs to be qualified a bit in our case.

Fairly early to bed and really early to rise (the cows always needed to be milked so they wouldn’t start bawling because of the pressure on their mammary glands), working hard all day from dawn to dusk (except Sunday, of course), led all or most of us to good health. We were, however, living proof that it did not lead to any kind of wealth—except an interior, spiritual kind—and living off the land did engender a kind of practicality and common sense that stays with a person for the rest of his life, throughout all facets of his life, with an understandable number of mistakes.

After growing up on a farm, one learns to work, how to work, and learns everything from carpentry to field work. One of my classmates, Dwight, was endlessly competing with me in everything, from school (he was a ‘C’ student, I was pretty much on a straight ‘A’ track; he was a poor athlete while I was the star of the school, etc., etc.) One day when we were shelling our corn in preparation for selling it, he came to our farm with his father who was a trucker. I was shoveling ear corn into the trench in the middle of the corn crib onto a conveyor which took the corn into the shelling machine. He took my shovel and began to shovel the corn fast and furious to demonstrate how much better he was than I. If my memory is accurate, he lasted no more than five minutes, certainly not even ten. While he was big and strong, he was raised in town, and therefore never had to do hard work, nor had he learned how; this incident occurred about 3:00 p.m. I had been working since 8 or 9 in the morning and probably went on for another couple of hours. When one does hard work day after day for 8 or 10 hours, it is essential to learn how to pace oneself. And that has many ramifications into the rest of one’s life.

Life on the farm was an unending series of long working days, a variety of work experiences, working with hand tools, building, dealing with the birth (and sometimes death) of pigs and cattle—a learning experience which I would say is second to none. One snowy, blustery day in the middle of winter, I was sent to follow one of our sows which was about to have piglets for the first time. My father and mother somehow knew that this mother pig would have a problem. I found about eight or ten little newly born pigs along three fence lines of our pasture (about a ten acre field), put them each in a gunny sack as I found them, took them back to the house where my mother put them in the oven of our kitchen stove until they were warmed up enough to be taken back to the barn and attached to their mother.

One day I was walking with my mother across our yard and saw a rooster attacking a hen. I asked my mother, Why do they do that? She responded, somewhat testily, Oh, figure it out for yourself. That was the extent of my sex education at home, except much later for a small book which my older brother received from a priest friend of his. What my mother said was enough. She knew that I already understood. It doesn’t take much time on a farm to observe how cows, pigs and horses propagate themselves, and it doesn’t take long to transfer that to an understanding of how human children come to be born.

CHAPTER 4

My College Years

As I said earlier, during my junior and senior years of high school, I made it known that I wanted to study for the priesthood. It was decided that I would attend Trinity College in Sioux City, Iowa. I started as a Freshman there beginning the fall of 1946, shortly after World War II ended. It was an intimidating experience for me, to move from a completely rural life to a large city and a college with many more students than attended our small high school. I was a country boy, and all of my school mates, as I recall, were born and raised in the city. There were probably some exceptions, but I didn’t know it at the time.

My First Temptation to Change My Career

During my high school years, I believe I had the reputation as an outstanding pitcher. Although our baseball team, as a team, was no more than second rate, we won almost all of our games, primarily because I would usually allow only two to three hits per game (our problem was in our fielding errors), and I would have eighteen to twenty one strikeouts per seven inning game. In spite of how good I was as a pitcher and generally as a baseball player, I gave no thought at that time to any career other than the priesthood.

On the same campus as Trinity College was Trinity High School, a boys school, with students from the entire Sioux City, Iowa area. The high school had an excellent baseball team. Their coach somehow found out about my ability as a pitcher and asked me to pitch to his team during batting practice. Their coach asked me to do two things: 1) pitch to them in such a way as to let them hit, and in another segment, 2) do my best to strike them out. During the second phase of batting practice, I was able to strike most of them out, or they would pop up, or hit easy grounders.

They were a good enough team that major league scouts visited them occasionally. One day during one of the batting practices, a New York Yankee scout stood behind me to watch them bat. When the session was over, he volunteered to me that I could almost certainly pitch in the major leagues, but he also advised me that it would be a hard life. (Maybe he was a Catholic and knew I was studying for the priesthood.) At any rate, his opinion of my pitching ability hit me hard and it constituted a temptation to revise my career plans. But I decided against making a change, partly because of his warning of how hard a life it would be. Always a baseball fan, and following the lives of many of the major league players, it didn’t take me long to set aside all regret that I had decided not to pursue a baseball career. And I have been grateful to that Yankee scout that he had been so direct and honest with me about the kind of life that baseball players had to live.

Homosexuality—My First (but not last) Encounter

I never saw homosexuality in the animal world. Once in a great while, I saw a cow somewhat half-heartedly and for a few seconds mount another cow, but it never occurred to me to think anything good or bad about the act. When I saw a bull mount a cow and stay with it for an extended period of time, that had enormous significance for the growth of our herd and the livelihood of our family.

When, about half way through my first year of college, I encountered true homosexuality, I was totally unprepared, and, in my naiveté, had no idea what was happening nor how to handle it.

On this particular afternoon, one of my classmates came to my room, engaged in general conversation, and then locked my door, came to me, put his arms around me and kissed me on the lips. It made me terribly uncomfortable, and I thought he would notice that and stop. But he kept at me until finally I was more than uncomfortable—which he noticed and misinterpreted. He said Get a towel. He himself got my towel and when he came back to me, I told him I’ve never done anything like this before. He immediately stopped, left my room, and two days later left the seminary. This incident came entirely out of the blue. If there were any prior warning signs that this classmate was building up to this encounter, I simply didn’t see them.

For reasons I do not know, homosexuals over the years seem to have been attracted to me. There were many encounters in the course of my younger life—through my twenties and thirties. These incidents, which will come up as I proceed with these reminiscences, have taught me a number of things about the homosexual personality and ways to deal with them firmly but with charity and patience. I’ll come to those perceptions later in this work. For example, during my Theology studies in Rome, Father Edwin Healey, S.J. spent a great deal of time in teaching us how to deal with the homosexual in the confessional.

CHAPTER 5

Loras College—

Sophomore to Senior Years

Trinity College and High School closed at the end of the 1946-1947 school year, primarily I believe because my brother Father Eugene Kevane had organized and built the 13 parish central Catholic High School in Sioux City, Iowa, named after an earlier bishop, Heelan Catholic High School.

Therefore, in the fall of 1947, I entered my Sophomore year all the way across the state at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. In one sense, it was a high quality college, having a preponderance of very good professors, with a few who were frankly terrible. We had the expected courses in literature, three years of Latin, one course in Greek which taught me the alphabet, some phrases that were later useful, but I certainly did not learn how to speak it. The same was true of Latin, but later in Theology I learned how to speak, write and converse in Latin. It was a good rounded education. I graduated with a 3.9 average (out of 4.0)—among the few leaders in the class.

As I look back on it, the most important courses for me at the time and applicable in later studies, were the various courses in Philosophy. It was very important to me, both at the time and later in the study of Theology, to learn how the mind works and to develop an understanding of the material and spiritual sides of our lives. It was important to know—for example—as we see a tree that a picture forms in our mind in some abstract form what a tree is, so that if later we see a tree we have never encountered before, we instantly