Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC

Msgr. Vincent Kelly listens to scholarship recipient Jesus Vasquez of Archbishop Curley Notre Dame High School.

MIAMI � This is how Msgr. Vincent Kelly retired after nearly 36 years as chief overseer of Catholic schools in the archdiocese: by giving money away to needy students and needy schools.

It was a fitting tribute to a man who worked tirelessly, and often behind the scenes, to support Catholic education: a $25,000 scholarship � $5,000 a year for five years � to a needy student at Archbishop Curley Notre Dame High School in Miami, and a nearly $23,000 contribution to struggling schools in South Florida�s inner cities.

The scholarship was a gift from the archdiocese in Msgr. Kelly�s name. The nearly $23,000 was the money collected from archdiocesan schools as a personal gift to Msgr. Kelly.

�On this hand I accept it and love you,� he told school principals and archdiocesan officials who gathered for lunch after a Mass in his honor Sept. 15. On the other hand, �I give it to five schools of the inner city that need attention and love too.�

The schools also donated dozens of prayer and Mass cards to Msgr. Kelly, something he called �extra mileage� for the road to heaven.

The soft-spoken Irishman is keeping his day jobs: as supervising principal of St. Thomas Aquinas and Cardinal Gibbons high schools and pastor of St. John the Baptist Parish in Fort Lauderdale. He is relinquishing a position he did not want when it was given to him in 1975 by Archbishop Coleman Carroll, Miami�s first archbishop.

Five years earlier, he had been named supervising principal of St. Thomas Aquinas. When Archbishop Carroll called him into his office to offer him the recently vacated job of superintendent of archdiocesan schools, Msgr. Kelly replied, �That�s not my style. I�m comfortable at the high school level but not in the diocesan office.�

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC

Sister Vivian Gomez, Sisters of St. Philip Neri and principal of St. Jerome School in Fort Lauderdale, holds hands with fellow principals during the Our Father.

But Archbishop Carroll, as was his style, did not take �no� for an answer. And he was not above using what Msgr. Kelly described as �extortion� � but the archbishop called �good business� � to get his way.

Noting that Msgr. Kelly was building a football stadium at St. Thomas, without the archbishop�s permission, Archbishop Carroll told him: �If you take the job, I�ll forget about the stadium.�

�Well, I �voluntarily� accepted the position, hoping it would not last long. It has lasted a few years,� Msgr. Kelly recalled.

He spent many of those years commuting between Fort Lauderdale and Miami, and visiting Catholic schools as far west as Naples, now in the Diocese of Venice, and as far north as Stuart, now in the Diocese of Palm Beach.

�I spent most of my life commuting everywhere,� Msgr. Kelly said.

His title underwent some changes throughout those years � from superintendent of schools to vicar of Christian formation � and so did his responsibilities, as the department grew to include religious education, lay ministry and adult faith formation.

His staff also changed �over and over again� throughout those years, and Msgr. Kelly credited them for his success.

�It was the people I worked with that made the challenge palatable. They did the work. I was the front man,� he said.

But staff members and school principals disagree with that assessment.

�If St. Jerome is open today, we owe it to Father Kelly,� said Sister Vivian Gomez, of the Sisters of St. Philip Neri and principal at St. Jerome.

She said Msgr. Kelly came to her in 1985, when the school was in financial trouble and had very few students, and asked her, �Sister, if the sisters will remain, if you stay here, we (the diocese) will pay whatever we need to pay.�

�I owe that guy,� said Sister Gomez, whose school is in much better shape today. �He has done so much good in such a humble way. The good that he has done for this diocese has been incredible. The growth of the schools has been his vision.�

In fact, despite the splitting of the archdiocese from eight counties to three in 1984 and the painful school closings in the past decade, archdiocesan enrollment has remained steady, hovering around 30,000 in the schools and 50,000 in religious education programs.

Msgr. Kelly also started the Archdiocesan Education Foundation, an endowment or trust fund to help guarantee the future of archdiocesan schools, that is now part of the Catholic Community Foundation.

�Endowment has always been a focus of our thinking,� he said.

What few may remember is that when Msgr. Kelly was named supervising principal of St. Thomas in 1970, the high school itself was in danger of closing. Enrollment was down to 600 students.

�My contention is always I don�t want to be part of a sinking ship. So we build and rebuild,� Msgr. Kelly said. �We were the �old shelf� but slowly we re-energized.�

Photographer: ANA RODRIGUEZ-SOTO | FC

Hope Sadowski, who worked with Msgr. Vincent Kelly for a number of years in the Department of Schools, presents him with dozens of prayer cards and a nearly ,000 gift collected as a retirement present by the archdiocese's schools.

St. Thomas today is recognized as an academic and athletic powerhouse, and its 2200-student enrollment makes it the largest Catholic high school in the southeastern United States.

Again, Msgr. Kelly credits his staff, and the fact that his office has always been a moveable one: be it at St. Thomas, Gibbons, St. John the Baptist or the Pastoral Center, �we operate out of one collective system,� he said.

�It may sound (as if) I did a lot. No. I enlisted the help and participation of all these people at the local level to carry out the expectations,� Msgr. Kelly said, crediting especially the pastors for their �rock solid� support.

�They extended themselves to maintain the schools. They rallied their parishioners,� he said.

Again, not all would agree completely with the self-effacing monsignor.

�Msgr. Kelly has always been in the background, giving us the light and guide to go forward, sometimes in very difficult times,� said Hope Sadowski, executive assistant in the Office of Faith Formation who worked for many years with Msgr. Kelly. �He is a man with a great vision.�