Barbelin, Joseph-Felix (30 May 1808–08 June 1869), clergyman and educator, was born near Lunéville (Meurthe-et-Moselle), France, the oldest child of Dominic Barbelin, Secretary of the Treasurer General for the region of Lunéville, and Elizabeth Louis. The Abbé Joseph L'hommée, his granduncle and godfather, was an early mentor. Barbelin completed preparatory studies at the College of Lunéville where another granduncle, the Abbé Pierre L'hommée, taught. Dreaming of missionary work with Native Americans, Barbelin entered the major seminary at Nancy, France....
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Barbelin, Joseph-Felix (1808-1869), clergyman and educator
Francis F. Burch
Article
Blum, Virgil Clarence (1913-1993), educator, author, activist, and clergyman
Thaddeus J. Burch
Blum, Virgil Clarence (27 March 1913–05 April 1993), educator, author, activist, and clergyman, was born in Defiance, Iowa, one of twelve children of John Peter and Elizabeth (Rushenberg) Blum, both farmers. His grade school and high school years were spent at St. Peter's school in Defiance. In 1932 he began college at Dowling College, Des Moines, Iowa, and the next year transferred to Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. On 31 Aug. 1934 he entered the Society of Jesus at St. Stanislaus Seminary at Florissant, Missouri, where he earned a bachelor's degree in Latin and English in 1938. (A brother, Victor Joseph, also became a Jesuit and became a professor of geophysics and seismology at St. Louis University). Virgil studied philosophy at St. Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri, continuing studies in the summer until he earned a master's degree in history and political science in 1945....
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Cavanaugh, John Joseph (1899-1979), priest and educator
Thomas E. Blantz
Cavanaugh, John Joseph (23 January 1899–28 December 1979), priest and educator, was born in Bennington Township, Shiawasee County, Michigan, the son of Michael Francis Cavanaugh and Mary Ann Keegan, farmers. His father died when John was five years old, and his mother was forced to sell their small farm and move with four young children to nearby Owosso, taking in boarders for a time to meet expenses. After completing parish grammar school, young John enrolled in an accelerated commercial course of typing, shorthand, and bookkeeping and, at thirteen, entered the work force, eventually serving as a business secretary....
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Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier de (1682-1761), Jesuit priest and historian
Luca Codignola
Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier de (24 October 1682–01 February 1761), Jesuit priest and historian, was born at Saint-Quentin, France, the son of François de Charlevoix, a member of the old nobility and deputy king’s attorney, and Antoinette Forestier. He studied at the Collège des Bons-Enfants in Saint-Quentin and moved to Paris when he began (15 Sept. 1698) his two-year novitiate with the Society of Jesus. He then moved to the Collège Louis-le-Grand, where he studied rhetoric and philosophy....
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Comey, Dennis J. (1896-1987), Roman Catholic clergyman and labor arbitrator
Francis F. Burch
Comey, Dennis J. (26 May 1896–14 October 1987), Roman Catholic clergyman and labor arbitrator, was born Dennis Joseph Comey in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Dennis Joseph Comey, an iron worker at the Baldwin Locomotive Works, and Catherine Veronica Reagan Comey; the parents had been farmers who emigrated from Timoleague, County Cork, Ireland. The oldest of thirteen children, he excelled in studies and athletics at St. Joseph's College Preparatory School in Philadelphia. On 30 July 1914 he entered the Society of Jesus at St. Andrew-on-Hudson, Poughkeepsie, New York, and continued his classical studies. He earned his A.B. (1920), M.A. (1921), and Ph.D. (1929) in philosophy from Woodstock College, Maryland; he first taught Latin at Boston College High School (1921–1922) and then Latin, Greek, Spanish, and rhetoric at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. (1922–1925). He pursued theological studies at Woodstock College, where he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on 20 June 1928. A year's concentration on ascetical theology at St. Beuno's College, Wales, preceded his solemn profession of his Jesuit vows in Rome, Italy, on 15 August 1931. In 1931 the Gregorian University in Rome named him a doctor of theology and in 1932 ...
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Comey, Dennis J. (1896-1987)
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Dennis J. Comey. Photograph by Zamsky Studio, used by permission of Sarony Studios Inc. Courtesy of Francis F. Burch.
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Corby, William (1833-1897), Roman Catholic priest and educator
Gardiner H. Shattuck
Corby, William (02 October 1833–28 December 1897), Roman Catholic priest and educator, was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Daniel Corby, a real estate dealer, and Elizabeth Stapleton. After working for four years in his father’s real estate firm, Corby entered the University of Notre Dame in 1853. He joined the Congregation of Holy Cross, a religious order, in 1854 and continued his studies at Notre Dame until 1860, when he was ordained a priest. Soon afterward, he was appointed director of the Manual Labor School at Notre Dame, Indiana, and served as pastor of a parish in South Bend, Indiana....
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Duffy, Francis Patrick (1871-1932), Catholic military chaplain, editor, and teacher
Scott Appleby
Duffy, Francis Patrick (02 May 1871–26 June 1932), Catholic military chaplain, editor, and teacher, was born in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada, the son of Irish immigrants Patrick Duffy and Mary Ready. The third of six children who lived to maturity, Duffy received his early Catholic education from the Sisters of St. Joseph but had to leave school at the age of thirteen to work in a mill. At fourteen, however, he was thought to be too frail to work, so he returned to school. Duffy earned a teacher’s certificate from the Cobourg Collegiate Institute in 1888. Feeling a call to the priesthood, he attended St. Michael’s College in Toronto, studying with the Basilian Fathers and graduating with a baccalaureate degree in 1893. In 1894 he accepted a position at St. Francis Xavier College in New York City, where he earned a master’s degree and applied for formal entry into the seminary. Archbishop ...
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Gasson, Thomas Ignatius (1859-1930), Roman Catholic priest and educator
Edward L. Lach, Jr.
Gasson, Thomas Ignatius (23 September 1859–27 February 1930), Roman Catholic priest and educator, was born in Sevenoaks, Kent, England, the son of Henry Gasson and Arabella Quinnell. The occupation of his parents is unknown, but his family was of the landed gentry. Gasson was tutored by the Reverend Allen T. Edwards and was also educated at St. Stephen’s School, Lambeth, London. Gasson emigrated to the United States in 1872, having made plans to live with an older brother in Philadelphia. There he received private tutoring and was befriended by two Catholic women, Catherine Doyle and Anne McGarvey. The extent of their influence became evident in October 1874, when Gasson forsook his father’s Huguenot heritage and was received into the Catholic faith by the Reverend Charles Cicaterri, S.J., at the Chapel of the Holy Family (now the Jesuit Church of the Gesu) in Philadelphia. Gasson took his new faith one step further by joining the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) religious order on 17 November 1875, thereby beginning his novitiate....
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Greeley, Andrew Moran (05 February 1928–29 May 2013)
Leslie Woodcock Tentler
Greeley, Andrew Moran (05 February 1928–29 May 2013), Catholic priest, sociologist, popular theologian, and novelist, was born in Oak Park, Illinois, the son of Andrew T. Greeley, a businessman, and the former Grace McNichols, who worked prior to marriage and in widowhood as a billing clerk at Sears. His grandparents emigrated from Ireland. Raised in moderate comfort and interested from childhood in becoming a priest, Greeley entered Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago at the age of fourteen and attended St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in suburban Mundelein from 1947 until 1954, when he was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago. Assigned initially to a prosperous parish in the city’s southwest corner, Greeley developed an interest in the affluent, highly educated Catholics whose numbers were growing rapidly in the 1950s. Their impact on what had hitherto been a predominantly working-class, immigrant church was the subject of his first book, ...
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Guthrie, Joseph Hunter (1901-1974), Roman Catholic clergyman and philosopher
Francis F. Burch
Guthrie, Joseph Hunter (08 January 1901–11 November 1974), Roman Catholic clergyman and philosopher, was born in New York City, the son of Jacob Francis Guthrie and Mary Ross. He excelled at Fordham Preparatory School and continued his classical studies after entering the Society of Jesus at St. Andrew-on-Hudson in Poughkeepsie, New York, on 30 July 1917. At Weston College (Mass), he pursued science and philosophy, and he earned his A.B. (1923) and M.A. (1924) in philosophy from Woodstock College in Maryland. He taught and coached drama at Vigan Seminary and then at the Ateneo de Manila in the Philippines. His ...
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Guthrie, Joseph Hunter (1901-1974)
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J. Hunter Guthrie. Courtesy of St. Joseph�s University Archives.
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Healy, Patrick Francis (1834-1910), Jesuit priest and university president
Richard Newman
Healy, Patrick Francis (02 February 1834–10 January 1910), Jesuit priest and university president, was born in Jones County, Georgia, the son of Michael Morris Healy, an Irish-American planter, and Mary Eliza (maiden name uncertain, but possibly Clark), a mulatto slave. The senior Healy deserted from the British army in Canada during the War of 1812 and by 1818 had made his way to rural Georgia where he settled, speculated in land, and acquired a sizable plantation and numerous slaves. He fathered ten children by an African-American woman he had purchased. Healy acknowledged Mary Eliza as “my trusty woman” in his will, which provided that she be paid an annuity, transported to a free state, and “not bartered or sold or disposed of in any way” should he predecease her. Healy also acknowledged his children by Mary Eliza, although by state law they were slaves he owned, and he arranged for them to leave Georgia and move to the North, where they would become free....
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Kerby, William Joseph (1870-1936), Catholic priest and promoter of professional social work
Robert Trisco
Kerby, William Joseph (20 February 1870–27 July 1936), Catholic priest and promoter of professional social work, was born in Lawler, Iowa, the son of Irish immigrants Daniel P. Kerby, a prosperous banker, and Ellen Rockford. One of ten children, he attended St. Joseph’s (now Loras) College in Dubuque. After graduating in 1889, he entered St. Francis de Sales Seminary in Milwaukee and was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Dubuque on 21 December 1892. He then continued the study of theology at the recently opened Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where the relatively liberal Belgian professor ...
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McAvoy, Thomas Timothy (1903-1969), priest, archivist, and historian
Thomas E. Blantz
McAvoy, Thomas Timothy (12 September 1903–05 July 1969), priest, archivist, and historian, was born in Tipton, Indiana, the son of Charles Edward McAvoy, a merchant, and Nora Bernardine Walsh. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1925, made final profession of vows in the Congregation of Holy Cross (C.S.C.) that same year, and was ordained a priest in 1929. He taught high school Latin and English from 1929 to 1932, offered courses in American history at Notre Dame from 1933 to 1935, and received a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University in 1940. He was appointed university archivist at Notre Dame in 1929, chairman of the department of history ten years later, and managing editor of the ...
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Ming, John Joseph (1838-1910), Jesuit sociologist
Ronald M. Johnson
Ming, John Joseph (20 September 1838–17 June 1910), Jesuit sociologist, was born in Giswyl, Unterwalden, Switzerland. Knowledge about his parents and other early biographical data is unavailable. He graduated from the classical course at Benedictine College of Engelberg and on 7 September 1856 entered the Society of Jesus to begin his theological studies. Just over twelve years later, on 13 September 1868, he was ordained and assigned as a preacher at Kreuzberg. In 1870, after completing a demanding tertianship, a final year of ascetic training and study, Ming became a professor of theology on the faculty at the Jesuit seminary in Gorizia, Austria....
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Morini, Austin M. (1826-1909), Catholic priest, philologist, and historian
Conrad M. Borntrager
Morini, Austin M. (04 March 1826–29 July 1909), Catholic priest, philologist, and historian, was born John Morini in Florence, Italy, the son of Paul Morini, a goldsmith and designer, and Anna Bartolini, an embroiderer. He received his early education at the school of the Piarist Fathers in Florence; then in 1844, at the age of eighteen, he entered the novitiate of the Servite Friars (Servants of Mary) at SS. Annunziata church in Florence. At that time his name was changed to Austin. He completed his philosophical and theological training at SS. Annunziata and was ordained to the priesthood on 1 May 1850. He received the degree of master of theology in 1856....
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O’Conor, John F. X. (1852-1920), clergyman, writer, and educator
Francis F. Burch
O’Conor, John F. X. (01 August 1852–31 January 1920), clergyman, writer, and educator, was born John Francis Xavier O’Conor in New York City, the son of Daniel O’Conor, a builder, and Jane Lake O’Conor. Educated in New York City, he excelled in philosophy and in 1872 won the medal for the natural sciences at St. Francis Xavier College. He graduated with a B.A. that year. On 9 October 1872 he entered the Society of Jesus at Sault au Récollet, Canada. He continued his literary studies at the Jesuit house of studies in Roehampton, England (1874–1876), and pursued philosophy in the Jesuit College at the University of Louvain, Belgium (1876–1879). He began his academic career teaching classical and modern rhetoric and oratory at Manresa, West Park, New York (1879–1881), classical and Anglo-American poetry at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. (1881–1883), and French at Boston College, Boston, Massachusetts (1883–1884). During his theological studies at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland, he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest by Archbishop (later Cardinal) ...
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O’Conor, John F. X. (1852-1920)
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John F. X. O’Conor Courtesy of John D. Alexander.
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Pace, Edward Aloysius (1861-1938), Catholic priest and scholar
Robert Trisco
Pace, Edward Aloysius (03 July 1861–26 April 1938), Catholic priest and scholar, was born in Starke, Florida, the son of George Edward Pace, a Methodist planter and manufacturer of turpentine, and Margaret Kelly, a Catholic and daughter of the comptroller of the Port of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The first of eight children, Pace attended Duval High School in Jacksonville (1872–1876) and St. Charles College in Ellicott City, Maryland, a preparatory seminary (1876–1880, A.B.). He then became a seminarian at the North American College in Rome, studying philosophy (1880–1882) and theology (1882–1886, S.T.D.) at the Urbanian College. One of his professors was Francesco Satolli, a promoter of the Thomistic revival. Pace was ordained priest on 30 May 1885 for the Diocese of St. Augustine....
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