CV NEWS FEED // Nearly 30 years after the typical retirement age, Fr. Thomas Keller was still serving as a priest.
The Arkansas priest was 91 when he died on April 13 in Little Rock, according to his obituary, which the Diocese of Little Rock published.
He was the oldest and longest-serving priest in the Diocese, the obituary said, noting that he transitioned in June 2014 to being a senior priest, while serving as the chaplain for the Diocese’s pro-life movement.
“Throughout his ministry, Fr. Keller championed the unborn and the Church’s teachings of the dignity of every person from the first moment of conception to its natural end,” the obituary said. “He prayed and worked for the end to abortion. The Pro-Life movement in central Arkansas owes much to the tireless efforts of Father Keller.”
An article published in Arkansas Catholic said that in a 2018 interview with the publication, Fr. Keller remarked it’s crucial for priests, the laity and everybody to protect “life in the faith,” too.
“We can have life and be dead at the same time,” he said in the interview, according to the article. “But if we don’t have life in the faith, we are dead.”
Devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Fr. Keller encouraged people to follow Jesus through Mary’s intercession and to pursue the Devotion of the Two Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Fr. Keller was born Jan. 13, 1933, the youngest of seven children, the obituary noted. He attended Little Rock Catholic High School and Villanova University before discerning a call to the priesthood. He joined the St. John’s Home Missionary Seminary and was ordained in 1958 at the Cathedral of Saint Andrew. In addition to serving more than a dozen parishes over the course of his priesthood, Fr. Keller gave spiritual guidance to the Arkansas Army National Guard and was deployed to the Middle East during Operation Desert Storm.
Services will be held April 18 and 19 at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Little Rock, the obituary said. He will be buried in the “Priests’ Circle” at Calvary Cemetery.
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