From January, 1965 Michaeleen

The students and community at Mount Michael were saddened on the morning of December 17, when news was received of the death of one of our community, Father Paul Kelley.

Father Paul, a priest-monk from Mount Michael, died in Denver, CO, at St. Joseph’s Hospital, where he had undergone heart surgery two weeks before. He was reportedly making great progress, and was about to be released to his sister’s home in Denver to recuperate, when he suddenly died.

He was 34 years old, the son of Mrs. Paul Kelley of Omaha, and was a 1952 graduate of Creighton University. He was professed a Benedictine Monk on September 8, 1954, and was ordained a priest on May 27, 1958, at Immaculate Conception Abbey, Conception, MO.

A solemn Requiem Mass was held at the hospital in Denver on Saturday morning, December 19. The Most Reverend David Maloney, Auxiliary Bishop of Denver, gave the absolution. The body was then returned to Mount Michael where the Rosary was recited on Sunday evening and a Solemn Requiem Mass was sung on Monday, December 21, by Abbot Raphael Walsh, father of the community at Mount Michael. Absolution was given by the Most Reverend Daniel Sheehan, Auxiliary Bishop of Omaha.

The students of the seminary had been dismissed on Saturday to begin their Christmas vacation, but many of them returned to join with the community in this final act of worship for the repose of Father Paul.

Immediately following the funeral here at Mount Michael, the body was transferred to Conception Abbey in Missouri for a Pontifical Requiem Mass offered by the Rt. Rev. Anselm Coppersmith, Abbot of Conception. Burial was held at Conception temporarily until a cemetery can be made here at Mount Michael at which time the body will be returned to Mount Michael for its final repose.

Father Paul was the Principal in the high school, prefect of discipline, and professor of mathematics and biology in our seminary here. His loss is greatly felt by all of us, but we pray that he now enjoys eternal rest. “Well done thy good and faithful servant.”

Father Paul Kelley Returns

“Home is the sailor, home from the sea
And the hunter, home from the hill” (Stevenson)

To none of the monks of Mount Michael were the broad sweeping lawns, the breath-taking view, and the deep abiding peace of Mt. Michael Abbey more dear than to the late Father Paul Kelley. When his sudden and untimely death occurred, the abbey had not as yet made provision for a final resting place for its battle worn veterans and its expendable young expeditionaries. One of the most difficult decisions the chapter of the young abbey had to make was the decision to allow its first member of the Church Triumphant to be buried in the cemetery of another abbey, dear as theat abbey was to Fr. Paul and to every member of Mt. Michael.

Since Mt. Michael had no cemetery of its own at the time of Father Paul’s death, he was buried with the permission of Rt. Rev. Abbot Anselm who had once been his superior at. Mt. Michael, in the cemetery of Conception Abbey, but with the understanding that his remains were to be brought back to Elkhorn, as soon as a cemetery had been provided. It. Was felt by the chapter that Father Paul would have preferred to be laid to rest near the class rooms where he had labored so untiringly, the playgrounds where he had entered into their games with a fierce energy, and near the chapel where he had begun and ended each day, in the quiet of the evening and of the dawn.