Jesuit Father Francis M. O’Connor, who served at St. Ignatius in Baltimore and was a former rector at what is now Loyola University Maryland, died Dec. 23. He was 99.
The Scranton, Pa., native was ordained in 1958 at Woodstock College in Maryland, serving there after ordination for five years as a professor of Theology and dean before working for three years as rector of the Jesuit community at Loyola’s Evergreen campus. He held a doctorate in sacred theology from the Institut Catholique de Paris in France.
He also served in Washington, D.C., and taught at Georgetown University and North Carolina Central University in Durham. He served eight years as pastor of Holy Cross Church in Durham, N.C. While there, he was also vicar for religious at the Diocese of Raleigh and an acting superior for Jesuits serving in North Carolina.
Father O’Connor returned to the Maryland Province Curia in Baltimore in 1986 as socius to the provincial, an assignment he held for six years. While there, he also was the provincial assistant for higher education. For the next 20 years, Fr. O’Connor was superior and pastoral minister at the Ferdinand Wheeler Jesuit House in Baltimore; pastor of St. Aloysius Church in Washington, D.C.; minister of the province novitiate in Syracuse, N.Y.; and teacher of English and theology at the Jesuit novitiate in Nigeria. He eventually returned to service at Holy Cross Church in Durham, and finally to St. Ignatius Church in Baltimore.
In 2011, he moved to the Colombiere Jesuit Community in Baltimore where he continued to serve in pastoral ministry for eight years. He then moved to the Campion Jesuit Community in Weston, Mass., where he died.
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