Boston College Colleagues Celebrate Paulist Fr. Thomas Kane’s Teaching Career

May 18, 2016

Paulist Fr. Thomas A. Kane is a Renaissance man. He is the executive director of Paulist Reconciliation Ministries and Landings International, and directs Paulist Pilgrimages, for which he organizes spiritual journeys to destinations across the globe.

Fr. Kane also has enjoyed a rich academic career, teaching preaching, liturgy and the arts for 33 years at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, MA, and the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry in Chestnut Hill, MA.

Fr. Kane is retiring from teaching this spring. To mark his contributions, his colleagues at Boston College fêted him with a celebration (photos below) and this touching tribute:

 
For Tomaso Kane, CSP, on the Occasion of his Retirement from the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry

Tomaso,

Being well aware of your reputation as an expert rhetorician I though I’d play it safe with an old rhetorical saw – alliteration – or perhaps better consonance. So I chose three “C”s that might begin (only begin) to do justice to your long career not only of professional teaching and colleagueship but also to the vocation that you have borne witness to for you students, your colleagues, and indeed to the wider world.

So – “Craft” – You are a master of the craft of preaching. Lo these many years you have been a master teacher of this skill, which is so crucial for the communication of the Good News, the Paulist charism. You have formed more than a generation of preachers and their success in preaching is the best credit you can have. More than a craft, of course, you have taught them the art of preaching and demonstrated it yourself, especially by your faithful weekend preaching in many churches of the Archdiocese of Boston. 

A second “C” = “Camaraderie” – You have been a consistent, loyal and faithful comrade to us at Weston Jesuit and here at the BC STM for all of these years. Both inside the walls of these schools and outside in the various venues of the arts and fine cuisine you have been a Cicerone, leading us to greater and great delights of the mind, the spirit – and the palate. And speaking of being a Cicerone you’ve helped God-knows-how-many-people to enjoy, appreciate and learn from so many different cultures from Ignatian sites to India and beyond.

Tomaso, you also guided the Weston faculty in a major revision of the MDiv program in the late nineties and served graciously for many years as the director of the MDiv program and then in recent years as director of the ThM, showing great care and concern for the students in those programs.

You’ve served the Paulists and the wider Church by taking leadership of the Reconciliation Project – to say the least one of the greatest needs of the Church and the world.

A final “C” – of course, the one that has probably been on our minds since I introduced the “Cs” – “ Creativity” You will be known and remembered for the first two, but I think especially for this one. Your combined love of the arts, liturgy and preaching (all fine examples of the charism of the Paulists) led you to become our premier liturgical videographer, travelling the world to film liturgical dance in Africa and liturgies in in Spain, the US and Asia as well. You’ve brought the world to our screens and stirred our imaginations. You’ve helped countless people to expand their horizons and appreciate the cultural riches of the Catholic Church.

I promised three C’s in good Jesuit rhetorical fashion, but I can’t help but add a fourth which I think sums them all up: “Connoisseur” You have been an elegant Connoisseur of so many areas that make life delightful: food, wine, art, dance, theatre, the spoken word, the Church’s worship – and above all friendship.

For all this we say wholeheartedly “Thank You”

John Baldovin, S.J.

10 May 2016 

 

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