Remembering Ken

Ken died on May 25, 2002, the 39th anniversary of my ordination. He had been a close friend of mine through the three years of philosophy studies at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein. Even after those years we stayed in touch for a while. I visited his home in Maywood during those years, staying for meals with his parents whom I’d met during visiting Sundays at Mundelein. After ordination in 1963, we lost touch.

Ken had played a role at crucial points in my life.

Ken had been my study partner on occasion when I suffered real difficulty trying to grasp the abstract concepts of philosophy in Latin. I knew I had a problem with abstract thinking in Latin when I recognized I was learning more philosophy in the History of Philosophy class with John “Mousey” Walsh, S.J., than I was with Bernard “Silver Fox” McMahon, S.J.  I had no difficulty in Latin or other foreign languages, having studied Latin and German for 5 years and Greek for three. But my brain was not developed at the time to work with the combination of grasping concepts and understanding them in lectures in Latin. I always admired all of my successful classmates who apparently felt so comfortable in responding in class. I wouldn’t volunteer a response because I knew it would come out all garbled. As a study partner, Ken was a big help, perhaps not in aiding me in responding, but at least in improving my test grades.

He also was my cohort in a number of extra-curricular activities calculated to maintain sanity. Assisting with the construction, finishing and outfitting of the iceboat we christened “Snowflake” and tested on the lake in the winter of 1958-59. Providing me with the plan for building a three-transistor radio as small as a pack of cigarettes connected o a Telex earphone—reception not much better than a crystal set because it needed a long antenna to pick up any stations. Building baffled speaker enclosures and laminating them with fine wood finish (I still have those speakers). And Ken, as everyone everyone who knew him probably remembers, was a wiz with anything electronic. His ability in recording events, building his own stereo tape recorder by combining the sound boards of two Wollensak tape recorders. I’ll never forget the stereo rendition of a recording he produced of the Dimitri Tiomkin score for the soundtrack of the film Giant. And we all remember Ken’s ability with lighting, often collaborating with Gerry Walter, Don O’Connor or Jim Tolch, for our productions, as class assignments from John Conrath, S.J. Ken created rheostat-dimmers that gave those productions a professional touch. 

During the summer of 1959, Ken drove with me on a 425-mile trip (before completion of I-80 and I-35) to Conception Abbey, Maryville, Missouri, in my 1931 Ford Model A Coupe with rumble seat, pictured with Ken at Colonial Motel , Kirkwood, Missouri. My parents asked if he’d join me in this trip, concerned that such a long-distance solo trip would be too much for me—or the 28-year-old vehicle.

The reason for this trip was the requirement that I take a summer Latin course as a pre-requisite for entrance to Mt. St. Mary of the West in Norwood (Cincinnati). While I knew I didn’t need extra help with Latin, I knew I wanted to be able to take courses in theology taught in English. The three years of struggling with philosophy lectures in Latin brought me to recognizing I needed to make this decision to switch seminaries. If I was going to understand the theology studies needed in preparation for ordination, I needed to seek a seminary where theology was taught in English. While I knew the texts would still be in Latin, I knew that was not my problem.

Ken returned to Chicago by train from St. Joseph, Missouri, and I continued the summer course assisting Fr. Becker, O.S.B., and tutoring those struggling with Latin. One of my classmates was Stan Rother from Oklahoma City, who had come out of the Navy to enter the seminary and struggled with language learning. Later, I discovered he went on to be ordained—coincidentally the same day I was, May 25, 1963 and 39 years-to-the-day before Ken's death—went to Guatemala and served 13 years in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala (1968 –1981), Diocese of Solola, translating the New Testament into the Tzutuhil language. On July 28, 1981, Stan was murdered by a paramilitary death squad for his work among the indigenous people. Caught between the revolutionary movement for self-determination and the military government in Central America’s longest and bloodiest civil war, Stan refused to preach rebellion, but his pastoral devotion to his people eventually cost him his life.

By his accompanying me on the drive to Conception Abbey Ken was instrumental in exposing me to the Benedictine spirit of liturgical piety where I had the opportunity of translating the hymns of the breviary four years before I was to be praying them. In addition, Ken played a part in my being introduced to a martyr whom the people he served already consider a saint.

When I had approached my bishop, Loras T. Lane, he was amenable to a change of seminary. And saw to it that I was recommended to Mt. St. Mary of the West, Cincinnati, But when I was making arrangements for the transfer, there was a hitch. The rector, Msgr. Joe Schneider, figured I had a Latin deficiency. So I was enrolled for the summer Latin Course at Conception Abbey. After I arrived at the Mount, I completed the required Latin Proficiency test with all those who were coming from "noon-feeder" seminaries to see if they needed further Latin classes. The results of the test showed I did not need Latin classes. However, the full results of that test were not revealed to me until four years later when, prior to ordination, I was called to the office of the rector. As we spoke he began by telling me he had received a letter from my bishop asking "Are you going to ordain this man or not?" He explained that when I came four years earlier, he began to have suspicions that I had some ulterior motive for switching seminaries. What added to that suspicion was what he then revealed to me regarding the full results of that test: “You aced it; you aced it!” For four years he held this suspicion in what the seminarians had dubbed "his amateur-psychologist mind."

The ironic twist was that, by second theology, the Vatican released its Instruction on Latin in the Seminary, and the diocesan priests who were the profs had to scramble to brush up on their Latin abilities, most just gave lip-service to the recommendaiton. Our scripture prof, Father Gene Maly, was the only one who, having received his doctorate at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, knew that “Rome proposes, man disposes” and continued lectures in English, though some of his lectures were given from texts he gave translating on the fly directly from articles in German by such scripture luminaries as Rudolf Bultmann. Best course I could have had. Gene was the co-founder with Passionist Fr. Barnabas Mary Ahern of the scripture periodical, The Bible Today.

Ken also volunteered his excellent photographic skills for my First Mass at St. Peter Church, Rockford, on May 26, 1963.

All this is background about how Ken was instrumental in a very crucial point in my life and as prelude to my discovering as I recently researched information about Ken, finding, quite by accident, the listing of Ken as defendant in the cases of 10 young men who accused him and Bob, another seminarian a year behind us, of sexually abusing them.

 http://www.bishop-accountability.org/il_chicago/#ruge

This revelation left me with a mixed response. I was saddened to read the testimony found at that website.

In 2002, while serving as director of Service Justice and Peace at Holy Family, Inverness, I had occasion to hear a presentation at the parish by Barbara Blaine, co-founder of SNAP. Her account moved me deeply because of the first-hand testimony of her abuse at the hands of a priest. She had made me aware of the research being compiled on that website created by a non-ecclesiastical entity to assure the transparency by the Bishops in those days.

Reading the testimony of those abused by Ken and Bob, I felt a sense of betrayal, but also a sense of wondering how the young men I knew—one a talented and helpfully compassionate friend in early years—could be the same persons I was reading about in the trial testimony by those they abused. And I felt a sense of slight guilt for being so wrapped up in my own life and Hispanic ministry that I was not in touch with or present to Ken in the years 1976 and 1979 when he served at Divine Infant, Westchester and in October 1991 when he was “withdrawn” from ministry and placed on “monitored living.” Added to that, seeing that the abuse took place in part at Woodhaven Lakes in Lee County, located within the my diocese, at a trailer Ken and Bob owned, not far from one of the areas served by our Diocesan Hispanic Ministry, hit my heart heavily.

Ken died in May, 2002. The Archdiocesan death announcement did little to show respect or accept responsibility.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/resources/resource-files/databases/2006_03_20_list.pdf

So good to read the recent kind comment about Ken by my classmate of years ago, Bill O’Shea: “He knew he was dying of cancer, but had found peace and acceptance." May his victims also one day find peace.