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W&L Law Grad Receives Papal Honors

Monsignor Timothy E. Keeney, pastor of St. Bede Catholic Church, in Williamsburg, Va., and a 1990 graduate of the Washington and Lee School of Law, was recently honored by Pope Benedict XVI with the pontifical honor of Chaplain to His Holiness.

After graduating from the Redemptorists’ minor seminary in 1979, Tim had spent 11 years in the Redemptorists’ priestly formation program. He entered the W&L Law School in 1987, however, before ordination and making final vows.

After receiving his law degree from W&L, he spent two and a half years with a Norfolk law firm before he received acceptance into the Richmond Diocese’s priestly formation at Pontifical North American College and academic studies at the Pontifical Gregorian in Rome. He was ordained a priest on June 29, 1996, at the Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, in Norfolk, and served there that summer. In October 1996, he returned to Rome to finish graduate studies in dogmatic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

“Monsignor Keeney’s dedication, collegial manner and oversight of the ongoing formation of the priests of this diocese are invaluable,” said Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo, of the Diocese of Richmond.

Tim had served as pastor of St. Anne Parish, in Bristol, Va., until Jan. 15, when he moved to Williamsburg.

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