REST IN PEACE
6/17/1985
St. Paul, MN
Patrick Francis Kelly entered eternity June 17, 1985 at the age of 55, following a brave effort to overcome cancer. Born 9/28/1929 in Grand Forks, N.D., Kelly attended school at Sacred Heart in East Grand Forks and then at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. During those years he also served in the U.S. Naval Reserve. He then entered the St. Paul Seminary and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest for the Diocese of Crookston in 1958, he devoted much of his ministry to the formation of communities of Christian caring on university campuses, in pastoral ministry and social justice movements.
Beginning as a parish priest in Blackduck, MN., he went on to serve in three additional parishes in the Crookston diocese. His campus ministry began in 1969 at the College of St Benedict in St. Joseph, MN., from which he moved in 1972 to the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis. While there he helped establish an ecumenical Campus Ministry Center on the St. Paul Campus. In 1975, after retiring from institutional priesthood, he and Christin Lore, a former Sister of St. Joseph, joined their lives and ministries through marriage. He then worked as a legislative aide and for the Department of Economic Security, helping develop the state’s surplus food distribution systems. In recent years he and Christin have been committed to the continued development of Wisdom House, an ecumenical center founded by Reverend Alla Bozarth Campbell for spiritual growth and healing. (excerpted from the St. Paul Pioneer Press 6/20/1985)
In the early years of CORPUS Pat resigned his position with the state government to work full time as a volunteer. He set up a charitable corporation called Priestly Ministries USA for the purpose of gathering contact information for all the known resigned priests in the United States. These names were made available both to CORPUS and another reform organization called Fellowship of Christian Ministries (FCM).