Cardinal Keeler out of hospital after car crash in Italy

Published: 2006-10-11

BALTIMORE (CNS) -- Cardinal William H. Keeler of Baltimore was released from a hospital in Terni, Italy, Oct. 10, three days after he suffered a broken ankle in a car crash that killed one friend and injured another. Father Bernard Quinn, 78, was killed and Msgr. Thomas H. Smith, 75, broke several ribs in the Oct. 7 accident. Another vehicle struck the passenger side of the car in which the three vacationing American clerics were riding. Father Quinn was a retired priest of the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pa., and Msgr. Smith, also a priest of that diocese, is pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Lancaster. Cardinal Keeler was a priest and bishop in Harrisburg before he became archbishop of Baltimore, and he has often spent vacations traveling with the two priests. Sean Caine, Baltimore archdiocesan spokesman, said Oct. 10 that following his release from the hospital Cardinal Keeler was recuperating at the Pontifical North American College, the U.S. seminary in Rome. He told The Catholic Review, archdiocesan newspaper, that the cardinal is expected to wear a cast on his ankle for 30 days.

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