Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly was honored last week for his 25 years of leadership as Archbishop of Louisville when he was named co-recipient of the 2007 Louisvillian of the Year award. The other recipient of the award, given by the Advertising Federation of Louisville, was Dr. Kevin Cosby, senior pastor of St. Stephen Church.

In a question-and-answer session at the July 20 awards luncheon at The Olmsted, both men were asked how they would define leadership in their work. Archbishop Kelly replied:

“It’s service to the people you are governing or leading. It’s precisely service; it’s to find out who we are and what we are and then to do it, and do it as well as possible.”

These words echoed those spoken by Archbishop Kelly at his installation as Archbishop of Louisville on Feb. 18, 1982. He said then, “I am ... to be the servant of your faith.”

The past quarter-century has been for Archbishop Kelly a service of leadership in the Archdiocese of Louisville. And this has been carried out in many different ways as reported in a series of articles in The Record this week and last week.

His leadership is reflected in the renewal and growth that has taken place in the archdiocese. This has touched all areas of the local church, from parishes and schools to archdiocesan ministries and programs.

One significant development was strategic planning that emerged from the Renew process of parish spiritual renewal in the 1980s. The planning process included adoption of an archdiocesan mission statement, values and goals. Many new ministries, programs and initiatives sprang from the planning process, which continued during his pastorate with periodic revisions of the strategic plan.

Archbishop Kelly’s leadership also was demonstrated by his service as a teacher of the faith as he addressed issues and concerns related to the Gospel and the teachings of the Catholic Church. He spoke out and challenged Catholics — and the broader community as well — on concerns related to the defense of human life and human dignity. And he consistently emphasized, in his preaching and his writing, service to the poor.

In fact, at the Louisvillian of the Year award luncheon, he mentioned serving the poor as one of the major challenges facing the Louisville community. He encouraged people and their leaders to continue to “keep the poor in mind” and not to neglect their needs.

Archbishop Kelly said in a recent interview that he would leave to historians to determine his legacy as the eighth ordinary and third archbishop of the Louisville archdiocese, which next year will mark its 200th anniversary. But he indicated some of what that legacy may be by explaining what he set out to do when he came to Louisville and his style of pastoral leadership.

He said he wanted to be a person “who would be open” to people and “who would facilitate the vision of the faithful and the clergy.” He noted that the Second Vatican Council “told us that the first element of the church is the People of God, and that we clergy are the servants of them.”

He wrote in a 1999 column in The Record that the bishop’s job is “to work for the unity of Christ’s church in this archdiocese,” and on a day-to-day basis, it is “the mission of Christ that must be served.” He added: “The bishop is a servant, an enabler who tries to maintain external harmony so that the real interior harmony of our unity in Christ may be manifest.”

In an interview he said, “You can’t foster service with thunderbolts. You can only model and hope for the best.”

Archbishop Kelly has been a model of service through his leadership and governance of this local church for the past 25 years. The renewal and growth that have resulted from this leadership service are evidence of it. So too has been his leadership role as a teacher of the faith, challenging us all to live the Gospel of Jesus more fully in our personal lives and our lives in society.

We are thankful to God that this servant of the faith came our way. We are a better community of faith for his leadership and his model of service.