By Catholic Review Staff
A longtime missionary to Chile who held several positions in Baltimore, Jesuit Father John F. Henry died Oct. 12 at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville, Pa. A funeral Mass was offered Oct. 16.
A native of New Jersey, Father Henry entered the Jesuits in Pennsylvania in 1943. He taught English, math and catechism at Loyola High School in Towson, 1949-1952. He then studied theology at Woodstock College, 1952-1956, and was ordained to the priesthood by Baltimore Archbishop Francis P. Keough in 1955. Father Henry made his final profession to the order at St. Ignatius in Baltimore in 1978.
From 1959 to 1973, he ministered in Chile, where he and 20 other Maryland Jesuits founded a school, and where he led the Jesuit community. After teaching sociology for three years in Santiago, he returned to Baltimore to serve as pastor of St. Ignatius and his community’s superior. He returned to Chile, and from 1978-2009, he taught at two universities, directed an outreach, and was later chaplain to U.S. Jesuit Volunteers Corps members.
“Everyone, due to our baptism, is called to be a missionary so that all people might have life in Jesus Christ,” he recently wrote.
From 2009-12 Father Henry was again in Baltimore, were he ministered as St. Ignatius’ senior priest. From 2012 until his death he worked in Hispanic pastoral ministry in Reading, Pa., while living in Wernersville.
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