Maureen Kenney, the youngest of six living siblings of Bishop-elect Kevin Kenney, remembers that while growing up there “was always a crowd, and I was the youngest” and the family station wagon was always full.
“We were who we were,” Maureen said as the days ticked closer to her brother’s Oct. 28 episcopal ordination at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul.
“Our family is very Irish Catholic,” she said. “Mom and dad were very faith-filled. Church was very important. It was not only a religious upbringing, but we had to be kind to people. To show up as Christians, to be Christ-like, that was just the way it was.”
Maureen remembers that her brother, Kevin, was an altar boy, but he also had a paper route. Family life was orderly, structured, healthy and happy. There was a sense of community in the neighborhood, and the Kenney backyard skating rink was a big draw.
“Come on over, let’s put on our skates,” Maureen recalls family members suggesting. “The neighbor kids just played all day and then you heard a mom call out, ‘time for dinner!’”
There was kick the can, catch the flag, kids who were Catholic, kids who weren’t.
“It didn’t matter,” said Maureen, who attends St. Stanislaus in St. Paul. “What mattered is that we were nice to each other and behaved.”
Tragedy
Tragedy struck the Kenney family in 1962, before Maureen was born. William (Bill) and Dorothy Kenney’s daughter, Sheila, died in her crib at 28 days old.
The family has not forgotten, and to this day celebrates and marks Sheila’s birthday, wondering as each year goes by what she might have been like at different ages.
“I (was born) a year later,” Maureen recalls. “I have a lot of curiosity about Sheila. I’ll never forget her.”
Nor will Bishop-elect Kenney. At the July 25 news conference announcing his appointment as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the bishop-elect recalled a religious sister urging priests and bishops to go back to their first love.
“It made me reflect on how when I was 3 years old, my little sister Sheila died … And I remember coming down the steps that morning and my mother picking me up and showing me a picture of Jesus on the wall and saying, ‘Jesus took your little sister home last night.’ And I felt this immense love and kind of a little bit of jealousy. ‘Why did you take her? You know, that’s all you want, all of us.’ But from that day on,” the bishop-elect said, “that intense love Jesus has for everyone, and for him to take my little sister home, was truly a blessing, even as hard as it was for the family then.”
The oldest Kenney sibling, Pat, 69, said the death of their sister and so many other events that impact any large family –– the loss of grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, friends –– helped shape and mature his brother, Bishop-elect Kenney.
“I consider this the depth of family experience, which is shared by all in our human journey,” said Pat, who attends Mary, Mother of the Church in Burnsville and St. John the Baptist in Savage. “Kevin was a part of this, formed with a heart for family and others, a heart for life. His formation through these experiences all the way to his entry into priesthood brought him great responsibility in our family as a counsel, faithful engager, and presider of all our holy sacraments across close family, extended family, neighbors and friends.”
Mary Kay Sprangers, 68, who lives with her husband, John, in Woodbury, said Sheila was buried in their grandfather Kenney’s grave at Resurrection Cemetery in Mendota Heights, but without a grave marker. In later years, she helped her mother pick out a gravestone, which is now at her sister’s gravesite and reads, “Sheila Marie Kenney ‘Safe in the arms of Jesus.’”
Family and community
The Kenney siblings were shaped by their parents, who among other endeavors were members of People of Praise, an ecumenical movement of charismatic prayer and close community. Dorothy oversaw the household and school activities, and both volunteered at church and with groups such as Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. Bill was a realtor who made certain all his children helped around the office, cleaning up, taking out the trash and other chores. He spent the last 17 years of his life working as an evening security guard at Visitation School in Mendota Heights. The family moved to different areas of the Twin Cities as the children grew up and their parents downsized.
“Kevin and I did janitorial work at my dad’s office and when we started it took both of us to to lift a waste basket and empty it,” recalled Bill Kenney, who with his wife, Janice, attends Sacred Heart in Enumclaw, Washington. “Pat had a paper route, then I took over and Kevin took over for me. Our parents kept us busy.”
Their mother introduced their father to People of Praise. He grew to be active in leadership, and at one point coordinated the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Office for the archdiocese, Bishop-elect Kenney told The Catholic Spirit in a recent conversation.
As kids, they often heard early morning praying and singing in the house and sometimes mischievously set their alarm clocks to ring three minutes apart, “so it would kind of interfere with what they were doing,” Bishop-elect Kenney said, smiling.
Their parents’ positive impact on the Catholic community was evidenced by the hundreds of people who attended their father’s funeral in 2016 at the Cathedral of St. Paul. And a very singular thing happened. It was described in a People of Praise blog post in 2017:
“As the gospel was read, a man wearing a bandanna and carrying a backpack came in the side door and walked across the front of the cathedral. On a day with a high temperature of 10 degrees Fahrenheit and a wind chill well below zero, he wore sandals with white socks, and white pants. While the crowd stood in their pews, he walked right up to the casket at the front of the church, bent down and kissed it. Then he walked down the center aisle and out the door.”
Bishop-elect Kenney was presiding at his father’s funeral –– a father who wanted three words to be said at his funeral: “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” The bishop-elect remembers the incident well.
“Well, it (was) either Jesus or an angel or somebody dad helped along the way,” Bishop-elect Kenney recalled. “It didn’t startle many of us because, I mean, that’s how we were brought up. He just came in to pay his respects to dad. I just thought it was beautiful.”
Mary Kay said her parents were involved with People of Praise after she had grown up and left the house. But she knew about, and she remains grateful for, the love and support people in the group gave her parents, and the family. “These special men and women supported our family when dad and mom went to heaven. We are so grateful for them.”
Dorothy Kenney died six years after her husband, while living at Little Sisters of the Poor Holy Family Residence in St. Paul. The family got to know the religious sisters well as they visited their mother. Bishop-elect Kenney began to celebrate Mass there every Saturday and said he hopes to continue doing that as bishop, as his schedule allows.
“They want me to, and I do, too,” he said.
First word of the appointment
Now, Bishop-elect Kenney’s siblings are preparing to attend his ordination –– and recalling their reaction when they first heard the news.
“We learned the same day as the news conference,” Maureen said. “The start of the day was like, ‘what?’” But after digesting the news, “it seemed like lovely recognition of his ministry and his faith, and his 30 years as a priest,” she said.
Imagining his future as a bishop, Maureen, who at 61 is just three years younger than the bishop-elect, said, “I hope, and I believe he’s not going to be much different than he’s been in his ministry so far. He will have new responsibilities, but I fully expect him to connect with people. He will bring his authenticity, humanity, joy and humility.”
Bill Kenney said, “Kevin will be a great bishop. He truly is a gentle and loving person with great faith that people can listen and relate to.”
Mary Kay, who attends St. Olaf, Assumption and Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul, said her brother’s appointment was great news to wake up to.
“I was overjoyed and thought of my parents and how they are rejoicing in heaven, dancing an Irish jig,” she said. “Kevin is an excellent representative of Jesus to people. … It is a blessing for him to receive and accept this role in the Catholic Church. I will continue to pray for him along with all the clergy of the Catholic faith.”
Rosie Rydberg, and her husband, Mike, live in St. Cloud and attend St. John Cantius Catholic Church. They plan to attend the ordination with three of their four children and eight of their grandchildren. “We wouldn’t miss it,” she said.
She learned of her brother’s appointment as auxiliary bishop while on vacation in northern Minnesota. “My phone went off at 5:30 a.m. and I actually heard it. (Holy Spirit!),” she wrote in an email. “I looked at my phone, half asleep, and then was very awake. It was a text from Kevin.”
Rosie, 66, said she hopes that as a bishop, her brother can “touch many hearts with the love of Jesus and help fellow Catholics to come to truly believe in the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.”
She and Maureen said their parents can’t be with them physically, but they are proud.
“They are both in heaven and just beaming,” Maureen said.
