Monsignor Eugene Kevane:

Priest, Scholar, Professor, Author, and Founder Par Excellence - R.I.P.

by Ronda Chervin, Ph.D.

Idoubt if I will ever forget my first meeting with Msgr. Eugene Kevane, one of the foremost Catholic scholars of the twentieth century whose heart was yet taken up with the problem of how to bring the truths of the faith to the littlest of children.

It was in the late 1970's. I was teaching a course in an Apostolic Catechetical Institute in Beaverton, Oregon. We were all awaiting the arrival of the famous Msgr. Kevane, the founder of the Notre Dame Catechetical Institute in Arlington, Virginia who would be teaching in the Oregon summer institute.

He was delayed because of his presence at a special blessing being given to the Notre Dame Institute by Cardinal Oddi from Rome, a close personal friend and a supporter of Msgr. Kevane's many apostolic labors.

One afternoon at the beginning of our sessions, a kind of intellectual and spiritual electricity was throbbing through the grape-vines of our little Institute. He had arrived! A tall imposing figure in clerics carrying a black leather briefcase (he was always to be seen in public this way) entered the lounge. Msgr. Kevane's high forehead and large noble face would have been totally formidable even to another faculty member, if not for the bushy greyish white eyebrows which added just the slightest literary touch to his almost monastic austerity. Soon I would be thrilled to come into contact with the many-faceted mind of this Catholic professor, writer, and administrator.

Before detailing some of the accomplishments of the priest who I came to admire so much, let me relate the basic facts of his life. The boy who would some day be honored with the title of Monsignor was born on June 5, 1913 on a family farm in the parish of St. Mary's, Storm Lake, Buena Vista County, Iowa. He attended a one room country elementary school, and a public high school. After college Eugene Kevane spent four years in the seminary including studies at the Gregorian in Rome. He was ordained as a priest for the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa. Besides his duties at the Cathedral, he taught at the school. The years 1942-1946 saw Fr. Kevane as a chaplain in the U.S. Army Air Force, where he was discharged with the rank of Major.

After earning an M.A. from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, he founded Heelan High School in 1949 where he was principal for ten years. In 1959 he joined the faculty of the Catholic University of America where he received a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education with a doctoral thesis later published as Augustine the Educator. After some years as Dean of the School of Education at Catholic University, Msgr. left for St. John's University in Long Island, New York. Later he would found the Notre Dame Catechetical Institute in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, designed to provide an M.A. program in catechetics totally in line with Magisterial teachings at a time when such studies were hard to come by. His work as head of this Institute still left him time to head the Center for Family Catechetics (out of which came his articles for Catholics United for the Faith), and also to teach as a Visiting Professor of Catechetics at St. Thomas Aquinas University in Rome, and as a Consultant at the Holy Apostles Seminary in Connecticut, and to write and edit many valuable books.

The scholarly writings (nine books and innumerable articles in many languages) reveal a consummate grasp of the teachings of the Church as well as the underlying errors that make it so difficult for some contemporary Catholics to embrace those truths. Deeply immersed in the writings of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, Msgr. Kevane traced in such books as Augustine the Educator, Love of Wisdom, and Lord of History, the way the truths of the pagan and classical ancients were seized upon by the Fathers of the Church and the way these truths found purification and fulfillment in the philosophical and theology writings of St. Thomas.

With sometimes biting logic, Msgr. Kevane in his writings and teachings knew how to show-up the erroneous teachings of modern philosophers whose ideas would serve to undermine Catholic belief. In a dramatic fashion, this great teacher, after letting his students almost reach despair at the thought of the triumph of error in modern times, would suddenly begin to tell of the revival of true Catholic philosophy that came with the encyclical Aeterni Patris of Leo XIII. As well he would pour energy into assembling all the Catechetical Documents of recent centuries so that a future catechist would never have to guess what the Church really taught about this unsung but absolutely necessary ministry.

Msgr. Kevane was a most private person. It has always been astounding to his colleagues and followers to discover some facet of Msgr. Kevane's apostolic work they had never heard of. For example, how many know that this super-orthodox priest could be seen in his clerics and black beret entering the Marxist bookshop in New York City to find out what the enemy was really teaching!

Or, did you know that Msgr. was the ardent supporter of Fr. Elias Friedman, a Hebrew-Catholic Carmelite monk in Haifa, the founder the International Hebrew Catholic Association? If you are a less than scholarly reader of this magazine and want to read something by Msgr. Kevane, you might start with his charming study of Mary of Nazareth published by the Hebrew Catholic Association.

Or, would you have guessed that the favorite saint of the world renowned scholar was St. Thérèse of Lisieux? Yes. When working on the book Love of Wisdom: An Introduction to Christian Philosophy with Msgr. Kevane I was amazed to find that on the final pages he chose to give tribute not to some famous theologian of ages past, but to the Little Flower. Why? Few people knew that Msgr. Kevane was a Third Order Carmelite. What he found in the writings of St. Thérèse was a summary in popular spirituality of the essence of the Creed. The Holy Spirit brought this small saint through the horrors of doubt and fear by means of pure faith in objective Revelation; in the truths that transcend all the ups and downs of human history.

One of my favorite memories was a Fourth of July Mass celebrated by Monsignor at the Notre Dame Institute. We were all bemoaning the inroads of false teaching in the Church and feeling terrible about the United States because of the abortion holocaust. What a surprise when, in his sermon, Monsignor did not comment on these sad realities but instead exhorted us to hope with these words: "No priest who hears confessions could ever despair of America, the sincerity of our people is so moving to any priest."

Due to an eventually fatal but long drawn out ordeal with heart trouble, Msgr. Kevane spent most of his last years in frailty and suffering, no doubt offering up all his pain and diminishment for the Church he loved so profoundly. With only enough energy to spend an hour a day on his beloved writing apostolate, he was able to complete the book Jesus: The Divine Teacher which will be published shortly by Franciscan University Press of Steubenville.

Msgr. Eugene Kevane died on October 13, 1996. May he rest in peace, but always intercede for those of us he left behind to carry on the glorious work of defending the truths which are our salvation.

Dr. Ronda Chervin has been a professor of philosophy at Loyola Marymount University, St. John's Seminary of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Notre Dame Apostolic Institute of Arlington, Virginia, and Franciscan University of Steubenville. The author of some 40 books on lay spirituality, apologetics, and the Catholic Woman, she is available for speaking engagements through the Franciscan University of Steubenville Bureau for Speakers. She is presently part of a community of religious women living in their own homes, open to candidates not usually accepted for convent life. For more information, write to her at:

Dr. Ronda Chervin

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Sedona, AZ 86336

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