John Patrick Kenneth Leahy

     Commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of his death

Born March 7, 1907 
         Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland
Died 23 June 1963 (aged 56)
         Tucson, Pima County, Arizona
Occupation  Roman Catholic priest
Nationality Irish
Alma mater Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome

The Very Reverend John Patrick Kenneth Leahy, O.Carm. D.Ph. S.T.M. (March 7, 1907 – June 23, 1963) was a Roman Catholic priest, Prior of the Carmelite College of Pius XI, Assistant General and Procurator General of the Carmelite Order, and a Professor of Moral

Theology in Rome.

Biography

    'Jack' Leahy, as he was known to his family, was born in Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland, the son of William Leahy, a merchant tailor, and Mary Leahy.  He was one of five children*, and attended the local Presentation Brothers (St. John's Monastery) primary school.  Growing up at No. 1, The Glen, young Jack was only a short walk from the Carmelite Church and Friary.  The relationship between the Carmelites and Kinsale dates back to the mid-fourteenth century, when the Norman knight, Robert Fitzrichard Balrain, built St. Mary’s Abbey in Kinsale, and offered it, and the surrounding 29 acres, to the Carmelite Hermits [1].  Apparently, Jack's proximity to the Carmelite community had a profound influence on his future, and he left Kinsale to enroll in the Carmelite-run Terenure College in Dublin. He entered the Carmelite Novitiate in 1923, and was professed in 1924. 

    As an obviously outstanding student, he was sent to Rome in 1924 to pursue a course in

philosophical and theological studies, earning a Sacrae Theologiae Magister at the Pontifical Gregorian University and a doctorate in philosophy at the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. Father Leahy was ordained to the priesthood on 24th June 1930.  His first academic appointment was to the Professorship of Moral Theology at the International College of Saint Albert, a house of studies for Carmelite students in Rome. He remained there until 1939, when he was appointed Prior of the Carmelite College of Pius XI [2].  During the challenging years of World War II, Father Leahy worked tirelessly to protect the interests of Irish and American residents in Rome [3].  During October, 1943, Pope Pius XII announced that churches, convents and other Catholic institutions throughout Italy should shelter Jews from persecution [4].  Risking his own safety, Father Leahy responded by hiding the Jewish owner of a nearby and well-known restaurant, Scoglio di Frisio. Father Leahy's action was acknowledged for decades after the war, and all Carmelites who ate there received an immediate discount [5].

    After the war, Father Leahy was appointed Professor of Moral Theology at the Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide and at the Pontificio Collegio Beda [6].  He held these offices  until he took up the position of Assistant General of the Carmelite Order in the General Chapter of 1947.  He remained the Assistant General for six years before he was appointed to the second highest post in the Carmelite Order that of Procurator General in 1953.  In 1955, he acted as a censor deputatus for the Censor Librorum,  the ecclesiastical authority charged with reviewing publications for doctrinal accuracy [7]. Also in the 1950's, he served as an advocatus diabolus.

    In 1959, he relinquished the office of Procurator General, because of ill health, and moved to Tucson, Arizona. During his time in Tucson, he was a consultant on the bishop's tribunals, and active at the Sacred Heart Parish Church.  He died on 21st June 1963 [8][9] at the age of 56, and was buried in Holy Hope Cemetery in Tucson. [10] He died just three days short of thirty-three years of devout service.

Find A Grave Memorial# 65783977

  

Works

Father Leahy wrote two books on Mother Marie Joseph Butler (1860-1940) under the

pseudonym, Carmelite Pilgrim [11].

• Leahy, J.K. (Kenneth) I knew a valiant woman: Mother Butler of Marymount (Tarrytown, NY: Marymount, 1949)

• Leahy, J. Kenneth As the eagle: the spiritual writings of Mother Butler R.S.H.M.,

Foundress of Marymount (New York: P. J. Kenedy, 1954)

Father Leahy (front, center) between the papal crown and mitre. 
Taken 28 October 1958 at the coronation of Pope John XXIII in Rome.

References

1.  Hession, S.M. 2010 A Short History of the Carmelite Friary, Kinsale, Co Cork. p. 2

2.  Currently the Curia Carmelitana, via Giovanni Lanza, 138, Rome.

3.  Keogh, Dermot 1995 Ireland and the Vatican: the politics and diplomacy of Church-State relations, 1922-1960 (Cork University Press) p. 64

4.  Dalin, David G. 2005 The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from

the Nazis (Washington DC, Regnery Publishing) p. 82ff .

5.  Isacsson, Alfred 2009 Our Man in Rome: the story of Redemptus Maria Valabek, O.

Carm. (Middletown, NY, Vestigium Press) p. 27

6.  Isacsson, Alfred 1984 Carmel in New York: The Province of St. Elias, 1927-1947 (Boca

Raton: Vestigium Press) p. 51

7.  Most Rev. E. K. Lynch, O. Carm. General of the Carmelite Order, The Scapular of

Carmel (Washington: World Apostolate of Mary, AMI Press, nd) Nihil Obstat: Romae, 20 Januarii 1955, Kennetus Leahy, Censor Dep. Imprimatur: E Vicariatu Civit, Vatic., 1 Martii 1955.

8.  http://carmelnet.org/1-PCMNecrology.pdf

9. Obituary Tucson Daily Citizen 22 June 1963

10.  Find a Grave

11. Catalog of copyright entries. 3rd series: 1955: January-June. (Washington DC: Library of

Congress) p. 107.

* Siblings: Annie (b. 1899) ; Catherine (b. 1901) ; Mary M. (b. 1905) ; William (b. 1910). Source: Census of Ireland 1911