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Hardly a decade after Lincoln’s assassination, Jesuit Patrick Recent News

Healy made history Releasing Hearts from Behind Bars

It reads like an impossible tale only Hollywood could spin. A boy born into slavery becomes
the president of a predominantly white university a mere eight years after Lincoln’s
assassination. While most were unaware of Father Patrick Healy’s background at the time,
that’s exactly what happened.
It was not uncommon, even in the early 1800s of the deep-south, for a slave owner to fall
in love with a female slave, occasionally going so far as to enter into a common-law
marriage with her. Michael Healy, an Irish-American plantation owner in Georgia, did just
that. After purchasing Mary Eliza as a slave, he fell in love with her, entered into a
common-law marriage, and fathered seven children. The law of the land at the time,
Jesuits have a long history of providing spiritual direction
and educational services to the imprisoned. Their
reflections allow us to more fully recognize the breadth of
God's love, mercy and forgiveness.
Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ, of Homeboy
Industries Speaks at Sacred Heart
Center in Richmond
Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ, founder of Homeboy Industries in LA,
and Fabián Debora, a former gang member, spoke at the
Sacred Heart Center in Richmond as part of Hispanic
Heritage Month.

Partus sequitur ventrem, dictated that a child’s slave status followed the bloodline of the
mother, not the father. All children of Michael Healy and Mary Eliza were therefore legally
Jesuits Celebrate Mass at St. Peter's
slaves in the state of Georgia. Basilica, Electors to General
Congregation 36 Pass Through Holy
On February 27, Door of Mercy
1830, Mary Eliza Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, SJ, presided.
gave birth to her
third son, Patrick Jesuits Open General Congregation
Healy. Like his 36 with Mass at the Church of the
siblings, Patrick was Gesù in Rome
a legal slave and Jesuit Provincials from the Maryland and USA Northeast
forbidden to attend Provinces celebrate Mass with other Jesuit delegates at
school. While his the Church of the Gesù in Rome to begin General
Congregation 36.
father couldn’t
change the law, he
Carrying the Light in India
could send his
The Maryland Province still has three Jesuits serving in
children north to Jamshedpur, India. A recent letter from the new Socius
seek the education proclaims the Jamshedpur Province a true gift from the
and opportunities Maryland Province as they continue to care for our three
remaining senior Jesuits.
he desired for
them. And so
General Congregation 36 (GC-36) Set
Patrick headed to
New York at a
to Kickoff in Rome
A new video helps map out what to expect as Jesuits
young age, an Irish from around the world gather in Rome for GC-36. The
Catholic with first order of business will be to elect a new Superior
African-American General.
roots. It was
actually his religious denomination, and not his bi-racial heritage, that met some resistance Remembering Fr. William A. Dawson,
at the Quaker school he attended. Though far away, Patrick’s father kept in close contact SJ, teacher in India and professor of
with his children and soon learned of a new Jesuit College opening in Worcester, economics and industrial relations
Massachusetts, the College of the Holy Cross, which offered a high school curriculum as From Jamshedpur, India to Baltimore, Philadelphia and
well. New York, Fr. William Dawson, SJ, was a Jesuit teacher
who touched the lives of so many students. He has
passed away at the age of 91.
Patrick transferred to Holy Cross, where he graduated in 1850. He entered the Jesuit order
and spent two years training in Frederick, Maryland, then teaching at St. Joseph’s College
view all news
in Philadelphia and at Holy Cross. It wasn’t long before tensions over slavery began tearing
at the seams of the country. More and more, Patrick’s mixed race became the subject of Search news
contention, and he welcomed the opportunity to study abroad when the Jesuits sent him to
Europe for further education. There he made history for the first time. Attending the
search
University of Leuven in Belgium, he earned his doctorate degree, becoming the first
American of mixed African ancestry to do so, and certainly the first born to a slave woman.
Publications
Patrick remained in Europe during the height of the civil war and was ordained a priest in

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 http://www.mdsj.org/news-detail?TN=NEWS-20150215031843

1864. He spent a year on retreat in France before returning home to the states in 1866.
Though slavery was now officially abolished, the movement’s hero, President Abraham
Lincoln, was dead. As the country struggled to rebuild and reunite, Father Healy began
teaching Philosophy at Georgetown University. While many were indeed aware of his
African-American lineage, his lighter skin kept many others from ever suspecting. He was
able to excel on his merits. In 1868, he became dean of the college and vice president the
following year. In 1873, he was elevated to the university’s highest honor; president. The Jesuits Magazine: Jesuits Magazine: Jesuits Magazine:
Summer 2016 Spring 2016 Fall/Winter 2015
ink on the thirteenth amendment to the constitution was hardly dry, and Lincoln’s death
was still on the lips of a rattled a nation when this slave woman’s child became president of
a mostly white university.

Father Healy’s impact on Georgetown was so momentous, he was often called the school’s
“second founder”. He took control of major building projects with an eye for Gothic
architecture that he learned while studying in Belgium. The most prominent was Healy
Hall, opened in 1881 and used to this day. He also upgraded the curriculum, preparing it
for the twentieth century, adding courses in chemistry and physics and expanding the
schools of law and medicine.

When he left his post in 1882, he was one of the most renowned Jesuits of his time and a
respected leader in the circles of Washington, D.C. He became advisors to three U.S.
presidents and finished his career as spiritual director back at St. Joseph’s College in
Philadelphia. In 1908, he returned to live at the Georgetown infirmary where he died in
1910 just shy of his 80th birthday. The slave-born Jesuit who advanced to a successful
university president just eight years after Lincoln’s assassination, was buried and remains
today in the campus Jesuit cemetery.

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