A Man for All Seasons

for god and country

Introduction

a man for all seasons. rev. John P. foley, s.J. was born on June 6, 1904 in motherwell, scotland, of irish Parents who emigrated to the united states when he was six weeks old. he grew uP in somerville, massachusetts, Just outside of boston. and after graduating from boston college high school at the age of nineteen, he entered the society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, on august 14, 1923, to begin a thirteen year course of study and sPiritual formation that led to his ordination to the Priesthood in 1936. as Part of his training he studied at heythroP college, in england, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in classical studies. he was later awarded a master’s degree in classics at boston college.

Along the way he gave evidence of gifts of capable leadership that led to his appointment in 1939 as Dean of Admissions and Assistant Dean of Freshmen and Sophomores at Boston College. On December 8, 1941, a day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Fr. Foley volunteered for service as a Chaplain in the United States military. One of his favorite quotes from Horace: “Cras ingens iterabimus aequor” came to life. “Tomorrow we set out on the enormous ocean.”

He was commissioned as a Lieutenant (j.g.) in the Navy on February 22, 1942; promoted to Lieutenant on March 1, 1942 and to Lieutenant Commander on October 3, 1945. From the day he began his assignment to Chaplain’s School in Norfolk, Virginia, on April 15, 1942, until he was discharged on October 7, 1945, he kept a diary of his experiences as a Navy Chaplain assigned to warships, first on the USS George Clymer, an attack ship and troop carrier, and then on the USS Vella Gulf, an aircraft carrier. He seems to have kept the diary for the benefit of family and particularly his mother, who was widowed when Foley, the oldest of eight children, was a teenager, and for his sister Catherine, to whom he was particularly close. The diary includes details that would have been of particular interest to members of his family, particularly his visits with his brother Edward, 12 years his junior, who was also serving in the South Pacific, and his practice of making the Stations Of the Cross in memory of his father at each church he visited, whether in Wellington, New Zealand, or at a mission station on one of the Solomon Islands.

But his central focus, as captured in the diary, was the war he witnessed. A keen observer whose Roman collar allowed him access to places, on board and on land, normally closed to men of his rank, Fr. Foley took careful notes of the horrors and heroism, and the young men he served, comforted and buried—and they were of all faiths; the Navy could only staff one chaplain on a ship that might be carrying 3,000 men. He also wrote about the nature of war propaganda, the difficulty of holding religious services under dangerous and distracting condi-

for god and country

Introduction (continued)

tions, and the people he met over the course of three years at sea. And his humor, his personal warmth and generosity, his intellectual curiosity, his love of the natural world, his keen appreciation for human character, wherever he found it, as well as his priestly example, high principles, and his affection for and devotion to the young men—though not a great deal younger than him—for whom he served as minister, surrogate father, and counselor, come across clearly. Although after his return to civilian life he could never read enough about World War II and adorned his room at St. Mary’s Hall with photographs from the war, he rarely spoke about his years in the Navy unless he was questioned. As one of his fellow Jesuits said, “He was too much of a gentleman to dominate a conversation with endless tales of his experiences, and indeed it is very difficult to share such experiences with people who have never had them.”

Fr. Foley returned to Boston College after the war and resumed for the next five years his position as Dean of Admissions and Assistant Dean of Freshmen and Sophomores. During that time he had his secretaries type up his war journals, and a copy found its way to the archives of the New England Jesuit Province. In 1951 he was selected to serve as principal of Boston College High School and in 1955 as Rector at Cheverus High School in Portland, Maine, and then in 1961 as as the first Rector at Xavier High School in Concord, Massachusetts. In 1968, at 64 years of age, Fr. Foley began a new career that lasted 27 years, giving the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, mostly to women religious in the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy and Malta.

In 1994 Fr. Foley received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. He maintained a cheerful spirit and a genuine interest in others as he prepared to “set out on the enormous ocean” that leads to the shores of eternal life with the good Lord he served so long and so well. “Home is the sailor, home from the sea.”

John. P. Foley, SJ, died on October 21, 1995, at age 91, and is interred at the Jesuit cemetery in Weston, Massachusetts.