Deacon William Francis Xavier Kane Sr.
May 10, 2020
Rockport - William Francis Xavier Kane, of Rockport, died peacefully on May
10, 2020, after being diagnosed with Covid-19.
For nearly 30 years, Bill nurtured the spiritual lives of people on Cape
Ann, as a cherished and respected deacon at Holy Family Parish. And he
devoted himself to the spiritual needs of inmates, often traveling long
distances to minister in some of the state's most hardened prisons, as the
director of prison ministry for the Archdiocese of Boston (1998-2009).
Guided by the acts of mercy, Bill focused his ministry on providing support
and comfort to those most in need. After his youngest child died in a car
accident in 1998, Bill channeled his grief into this work with a greater
sense of empathy and humility. At age 54, he studied Spanish to better
communicate with the many Spanish-speaking inmates he met in the network of
27 jails and prisons in and around Boston through his prison ministry. When
asked what drew him to this work, he would cite a line by the Irish poet and
political prisoner Bobby Sands: "There is no place more lonely than the
prison cell."
In 2000, Bill went to the Dominican Republic to improve his Spanish, a visit
that would soon develop into his life's work. In 2001, he founded the Holy
Family Parish Mission to provide medical care to the Dominican town of
Cevicos. He believed that mission work can help us see poverty as something
we all experience some form of, and that helping the economic poor can
deepen our capacity for compassion and love for one another. Bill frequently
drew on his prison ministry and mission work in his homilies, and in 2017 he
published a book about his work in Cevicos called I Am Who You Are. Today
the Mission is thriving. It has served hundreds in Cevicos through its
medical mission, and provides support to the town's small business owners
and college tuition for young people. In recognition of Bill's lifetime of
service to others, in 2016 he received the John C. DeDeyn Jr. Achievement
Award from Niagara University, his alma mater.
Bill was born in 1944 in New Hyde Park, NY. The first in his family of six
children to attend college, he paid for it by negotiating a personal loan
with a local bank at age 18. He received his B.A. in political science and
government in 1966 from Niagara, where he had the good fortune to meet the
love of his life, his future wife, Regina Stack. After graduating, Bill
served in the Vietnam War as a U.S. Army Intelligence Officer, assigned to
work in small communities with a South Vietnamese battalion. Critically
injured in the war, he was hospitalized for a year afterwards in Japan and
the U.S. He was awarded a Purple Heart and a Soldier's Medal for Heroism. In
1968 he married Regina, and in 1970 he became a Special Agent for the FBI, a
job that took him and his family to Maryland, Kentucky, and Michigan. During
his 10 years at the FBI he continued his education, taking night classes at
the University of Detroit to earn a Master's degree in Administration and
Organizational Psychology. In 1990, he completed four years of seminary
studies at St. John's Seminary in Brighton, MA and that year was ordained a
Permanent Deacon for the Archdiocese of Boston.
Bill was predeceased by his son, Matthew Kane. He is survived by his wife of
51 years, Regina Stack Kane and their three children: William F.X. Kane Jr.
and his wife Marianne Kane of Marblehead, MA; Eileen Kane and her husband
Alex Barnett of Waterford, Conn.; and Margaret Kane and her former husband
Marc Sears of Essex; and nine grandchildren: Owen, Natalie, Peter, Marc,
David, Beatrice, Willa, Tessa, and Mary. His family loved him very much and
will miss him forever: for his charisma, wit, compassion, and great ability
to love.
Covid-related restrictions mean that no traditional funeral Mass can be
held. The family will have a private burial, and host a ceremony to
celebrate Bill Kane's life at a later date. Instead of flowers, the family
asks that donations be made in his name to the St. Vincent de Paul Society,
Holy Family Parish, 74 Pleasant Street, Gloucester, MA 01930; and the
Cevicos Mission at Holy Family Parish
https://www.holyfamilycevicos.com/donate. Arrangements by Greely Funeral
Home, 212 Washington Street, Gloucester. For online guestbook please visit
www.greelyfuneralhome.com.
