Monsignor Kenneth Velo

A longtime aide to and confidante of the late, beloved Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, Monsignor Kenneth Velo has leveraged his local and national connections in the Catholic Church to do a world of good for a host of worthy causes.

About a year after being ordained a Catholic priest, then-Fr. Kenneth Velo was enthusiastically helping manage the large parish of St. Angela in Chicago, where he was associate pastor.

Fellow churchmen saw something in the new priest and made a seemingly small move that changed the course of Velo’s life. Ordained for only two years, he was elected by his confreres to the Archdiocese of Chicago board that makes decisions regarding the parishes where priests are assigned. That body, called the Priest Personnel Board, opened doors for Velo by giving him a chance to work in administration at the archdiocesan level. It also allowed him to get to know hundreds of priests throughout the many parishes of the vast archdiocese, which encompasses Cook and Lake counties.

That initial work in administration gave Velo archdiocese-wide experience and contacts. When Joseph Cardinal Bernardin was installed as Chicago’s archbishop in August 1982, the revered spiritual leader found in Velo a skilled, trusted aide, making Velo his right-hand man, sounding board — and also his driver. Velo rushed the prelate to parishes around the archdiocese for pastoral visits, and later accompanied him around the nation and the world.

Through serving the cardinal, Velo traveled in the highest circles of the American Catholic hierarchy. And later, after Bernardin’s death in 1996, it gave him the wherewithal to become a top fundraiser at the national level for the Catholic Extension Society and its mission to promote the faith.

Maintaining that same breakneck pace today at age 77, Velo now holds down two full-time jobs and a couple of part-time ones. His full-time work includes serving as DePaul University’s liaison to the archdiocese and to Catholic life in Chicago. But he is perhaps best-known today as the chairman of the Big Shoulders Fund, which assists students, faculties and schools in lower-income parishes in the Chicago and Gary archdioceses.

“His reputation is ‘beyond beyond,’” enthuses Amy Mazzolin, a donor to the Big Shoulders Fund and other Catholic and Italian-American causes, who has known Velo for more than 20 years. “He’s the kindest man in the world and we’re lucky to have him in the priesthood.”

“Everything I’ve done has built up to where I am now,” Velo reflects. “People say, ‘How are you?’ and I say, ‘I’m the luckiest priest in Chicago.’”

Of all those amazing life experiences, Velo speaks most profoundly, and with the deepest affection, about the 14-and-a-half years he spent as Bernardin’s aide and confidante.

“Basically, life changed for me when Bernardin was appointed,” Velo says. “I was one of the priests who picked him up at the airport (when he arrived in Chicago) and I was in the hearse when we brought him to the cemetery.”

New in town, Bernardin would stop by Velo’s office and ask what he knew about this or that priest, Velo recalls. Wanting to tap into that knowledge, Bernardin made him his executive assistant, and Velo moved from Queen of All Saints Parish, where he had been living, to a room in the cardinal’s rectory.

Velo recalls driving Bernardin around the city one day and confiding in the cardinal that he was embarrassed that his parents had gotten him a car phone, a predecessor of mobile phones. The cardinal said, “Let’s get one,” and immediately put it to good pastoral use. They would drive by a hospital and Velo would mention that a certain priest was recuperating there, for example, and they would call him up and offer well wishes.

“We were not friends, we were not business partners, not mentor-mentee, not father-son or brothers: We were all of those things,” Velo says. “It was one of the richest relationships anybody could have and especially with one of the great churchmen of the nation.”

Velo would travel with Bernardin to Rome, noting that he “got to know Rome quite well” while the cardinal was busy in meetings. He recalls a time when Bernardin took a long international trip, including to the Philippines and Rome, only to come back and acknowledge, “I am very tired.”

Velo accompanied the cardinal to his physician, Dr. Warren Furey, in 1995, and tests indicated a tumor of the pancreas. Doctors performed a procedure in which about half the pancreas and a third of the stomach were removed. Recovery was slow, with radiation for weeks and chemotherapy even longer. Velo stayed with Bernardin for eight days at the hospital, he says.

Months later, in March 1996, Bernardin nominated Velo to become a monsignor, the pope granted approval, and he has been Monsignor Kenneth Velo ever since.

Seven months later, Bernardin announced he would discontinue chemotherapy because it was not helping to control the growth of his tumors; in November, he passed away. Velo gave the homily at a funeral Mass in a packed Holy Name Cathedral, where people who couldn’t get in were standing outside in the cold to pay their respects.

Reflecting on how close he and the cardinal had become, Velo surmises, “I think it was basically that he and I were Italian Americans. His parents were from Primiero (in the Trentino region), so we had a lot in common.”

Velo’s parents were born in this country with roots in Italy on both sides of the family. As a child, Velo grew up in the Far South Side Beverly neighborhood of Chicago, which was populated almost entirely by Irish Americans at the time. Nevertheless, Velo learned to understand and speak some Italian from his grandmother and has obtained his Italian citizenship. “I had a Latin background for six years, but all I can do is read the cornerstone,” he quips.

Beverly had no Italian religious feasts, but Velo got to experience them in the Roseland neighborhood, and an adjacent area that was called Kensington in those days. His grandfather owned the Torino Bakery there and another grandparent owned the Milano Bakery in Joliet, Illinois.

“My parents were not deeply religious. But they always attended Mass and the priests knew them and I went through Catholic grammar school,” Velo says.

While he was in eighth grade, a Dominican nun named Sr. Agnes Clare took a few boys on a field trip to Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. Velo says that experience led him to make a decision that year to enter the seminary.

After college, he worked at two banks, returning to religious life with financial knowledge that helped in administration as well as in raising huge sums of money for the church.

In 1982, Bernardin appointed Velo vice chancellor for the archdiocese, handling such matters as marriage dispensations and responding to concerns at parishes.

By 1993, Velo had met so many churchmen around the nation by traveling with Bernardin that the cardinal appointed him president of Catholic Extension, which raises funds on the national level build churches in rural areas, operate religious-education programs, financially support seminaries, and run the Newman Centers, which are Catholic ministry centers at secular universities.

With the belief that “people give to people” and that fundraising requires creating relationships, Velo traveled to every state except Maine, and a few territories, like Guam, to boot. He focused much of his effort on wills, estates, annuities, annual giving and planned giving.

“When my term ended at Catholic Extension, we were raising $25 million a year,” he recalls with pride.

Today, Velo works as a senior executive in Catholic collaboration at DePaul University, using his network to connect the school with Catholic organizations and life in the Chicago area. His full-time salary comes from DePaul, allowing him to serve as the pro bono co-chair of the Big Shoulders Fund, which Bernardin and civic leaders founded in 1986.

“I love DePaul, I’ve done that for 22 years, but my passion is also Big Shoulders,” he says. “We (support) 25,000 students in 91 schools, including 16 high schools and 76 grammar schools.”

He initially got involved in his capacity as executive assistant to the cardinal, scheduling meetings, calling on potential donors, visiting schools and attending special events. He was invited to serve as president in 2002 and then as co-chair in 2008.

“There are all sorts of worthy causes, but among the worthiest in my estimation is the education of children, especially underprivileged children,” he offers. “It is so important because it sets the tone for the rest of their lives.”

Funding from Big Shoulders comes in the form of scholarships, capital gifts and operational grants that support students and the schools they attend, including personnel development, teacher and principal enhancement, and arts and other programs.

“As a young priest, I was always involved in the schools,” he explains. “I’m always willing to ask people to give of their time and treasure to this important endeavor, because it’s all for the children.”

Velo often celebrates Mass and officiates at weddings and funerals at Old St. Patrick’s near downtown Chicago, and spends Tuesdays at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, a research and rehabilitation medical facility in Streeterville, where he celebrates Mass and prays with patients.

Asked how many hours a week he works, he muses that he really doesn’t know. And Mazzolin notes that he always has time for people and never appears rushed.

He plans to keep on going with the same ambitious schedule.

“I’m seven years past retirement in the archdiocese, but I’m not going to retire,” Velo affirms. “I enjoy what I’m doing.”