President Schmoke Remembers Cardinal Keeler
March 24, 2017
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University of Baltimore President Kurt L. Schmoke is among many local luminaries who are fondly recalling Cardinal William H. Keeler, who died on March 23.
President Schmoke, who served as Baltimore's mayor from the late 1980s through the '90s, told The Baltimore Sun that Keeler was a coalition builder, constantly striving to bring people together to work on public causes.
"[Schmoke] still keeps a 1980s-era photo of Keeler on his desk, he said—one that also shows then-Mayor Martin O'Malley and former Mayors William Donald Schaefer and Thomas D'Alesandro gathered around a table.
"Keeler, Schmoke said, had cashed in on his years of friendship with the pols to call on them when he wanted to kick-start a new program for the homeless in Baltimore.
"'He gathered us to assure a strong political support for the project,' Schmoke said, noting that while the men in the room were all Democrats, their views sometimes clashed. 'It would probably only be Cardinal Keeler who could bring that group together.'"
Read the article in The Baltimore Sun.
Read more about President Schmoke's remembrances of Cardinal Keeler in The Catholic Review.
View coverage of President Schmoke recalling Cardinal Keeler on WBAL-TV.