Class of '48
by Father Leonard Spanjers

Father Jim Kelly

Imagine the foamy, churning effect of a one-hundred-twenty-four pond stick of dynamite ignited in a farm pond.  Now imagine a smiling, short, smart, one-hundred-twenty-four pound bundle of human dynamite name Father Jim Kelly, ignited in a twenty-five year sea of Glenmary activity—ranging from the job of secretary to Glenmary’s founder, Father W. Howard Bishop . . .through fourteen years of managing Glenmary’s temporal and business affairs . . . through another six years as first vice president to Father Robert Berson . . . to his present position as regional director of Glenmary’s Mission Office in Chicago.

Father Jim Kelly has been close to' Glenmary's pulsating apostolic heart since 1945. His keen analytical intellect has helped formulate Glenmary policy and procedures for almost twenty-five years. His dogged concern and dogmatic conviction that all Glenmary activity must be unified, and zeroed-in exclusively on the rural and small town missionary apostolate has resulted in Glenmary's clear vision of purpose today. You can ask any Glenmarian what his mission is. The invariable answer will be, "to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ in small town and rural America."

Father Kelly's single vision of the need for a rural apostolate focuses well with the aims and ideals of Father Bishop (who preached at his first Mass in April of 1948, and whose "Life and Work" was the thesis for Father Kelly's advanced degree in historical theology at St. Louis School of Divinity in 1972).

James P. Kelly was born at Sidney, Ohio, on February 11, 1917.  His father is the late Christopher C. Kelly.  His mother, Elizabeth, nee O’Reilly, now 82 years old, still resides in Sidney, Ohio. Jim is the eldest of the nine Kelly children - seven boys and two girls. His sisters, Kathleen and Mary (Vereker) died untimely deaths at ages 47 and 35 respectively. His brother, Tom, age 44, has been a professed Glenmary Brother for twenty-two years.

Jim graduated from Holy Angels High School in Sidney, Ohio, in 1935, carrying away top scholastic honors and a four year average of 91.4. During high school he worked in his father's insurance office. After graduation this industrious and skilled young Irishman spent five years as a licensed electrician, house painter, and paper-hanger, as well as being employed at the Ohler Bishop firm in Columbus, Ohio.

Father Kelly entered St. Gregory's College in 1940 and received permission to join Glenmary from Archbishop Timothy McNicholas in 1945. He completed his theological training in the top-level speculative courses at Mount St. Mary's of the West, Norwood, Ohio, and went on to graduate studies in Fordham University and St. Louis School of Divinity.

Father Jim's physical age is not quite aware of his chronological years. He can hike twenty miles a day on the Appalachian Trail with a full pack. He keeps a vigorous daily prayer, walking, and cycling schedule, reads voraciously, and has not lost an ounce of his bulldog perseverance at any task over the years.

Glenmary salutes him on his twenty-fifth anniversary as a priest.