Cover
story Sr.
Jane Kelly: She broke rules of the clerical club
By ARTHUR JONES
Healdsburg, Calif.
Sr. Jane Kelly has become by default
what the diocese lacked: a repository of trust for many Santa Rosa Catholics.
She has paid a high price -- the silence and lack of support of some priests
shes known for decades. She broke the code of the clerical club.
The sometimes acerbic 50-year member of the Presentation of the
Blessed Virgin Mary community, religious education director in Ukiah for almost
28 years, said she isnt leaving. Ive opened a Plowshares
community dining room for the poor and homeless. So thats why Im
staying. She now considers herself semi-retired.
She carries around with her the confidences, the details, people
bring to her: accounts of clerical financial misdeeds and additional
accusations of clerical sexual abuse. Talk about Watergate! she
said.
At the February Ukiah town meeting, she was photographed holding
her finger up as she met San Francisco Archbishop William Levada.
Id written him a four-page letter. I said, I sent you a
letter and named these [three] priests. He said, I didnt get
back to you. But dont worry, Im taking care of it. If I hear
that one more time
she said.
She can be disconcertingly direct. Can you believe this? Can
you believe this? she repeated, when telling NCR of other abuse case
situations she tried to bring to the churchs attention, when priests
shared her suspicions and did nothing. See the m.o. [modus
operandi]? she asked. She describes instances of hypocrisy, of confronted
priests giving academy award performances, though her more
penetratingly wry asides cannot be repeated.
She says shes looked church officials in the eye and watched
them lie to her without blinking.
Serving as a voice for the aggrieved has brought Kelly lay
support, however, generally expressed in letters to the editor in the Santa
Rosa and Ukiah newspapers. The latest, a lengthy open letter to Levada from
Ukiah lawyer and Catholic parishioner, Thomas F. Johnson, (Ukiah Daily Journal,
Feb. 16) asked: Why dont you publicly thank Sister Jane? Without
her this mess would never have come to light. You should be ever grateful to
her, yet it looks as though she is being treated like a traitor.
Obviously, in some circles, shes not popular because of what
she knows and is perhaps even feared for what shes set in motion. But
its not a situation she wants or relishes. She ended up with the
information originally because the institution lacked avenues of
accountability. The result of an unresponsive institution is that now it also
lacks credibility.
Whats a virgin nun to do? she wisecracked.
Then she answered. Id do it all over again. [The
alternative] is more detrimental to the church and the faithful. She
allowed herself a rare smile.
National Catholic Reporter, March 3,
2000
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