Fr. Edward A. Reese, SJ, president of St. Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco and longtime Jesuit high school administrator, died peacefully in the early morning hours of August 2, 2025, at Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos, California. He was 82 years old and a member of the Jesuits for 63 years.
Fr. Reese’s ministry was devoted to Jesuit secondary education. For 54 years, he served faculty, staff and students at six Jesuit schools. Before his priestly ordination, he taught history and English at his alma mater, Loyola High School of Los Angeles (1968-1970). Later, he filled a variety of administration positions: director of resident students, director of campus ministry, theology department chair and assistant principal for student activities at Loyola (1973-1977); assistant principal for academics (1978-1980) and principal (1980-1994) at Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, California; director of personnel development at St. Ignatius College Riverview in Sydney, Australia (1994-1995); assistant to the president at Jesuit High School in Sacramento (1995-1996); president of Brophy College Preparatory in Phoenix (1996-2016); and president of St. Ignatius in San Francisco (2016-2025).
Fr. Reese, an outstanding administrator with a perceptive eye for hiring faculty and staff, loved being present to students at campus sporting events and activities. While serving as president of St. Ignatius College Preparatory, he also served as a part-time chaplain for the San Francisco police and fire departments.
Edward Arthur Reese was born in Alhambra, California, on October 2, 1942, the son of James B. Reese, a superior court judge for Los Angeles County, and Gwendolen McNeal Reese, a schoolteacher. He attended Loyola High School in Los Angeles, and upon graduation, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Los Gatos in 1961. His Jesuit studies took him to Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, for degrees in philosophy; the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, for theological studies; and to Fordham University in New York for a diploma in educational administration.
Earlier this summer he was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer and moved to hospice care in the infirmary at Sacred Heart Jesuit Center, the place where he started his Jesuit vocation 63 years earlier.
He was predeceased by his brother, James, and sister, Gwendolen Makowski. He is survived by his brother, Father Thomas J. Reese, SJ, of Washington, D.C.
Fr. Reese’s funeral Mass will be held on Wednesday, August 20, 2025, at 10 a.m. at St. Ignatius Church on the campus of the University of San Francisco, 650 Parker Avenue, San Francisco, 94118. It will be livestreamed on the parish’s YouTube channel. Inurnment will be at Santa Clara Mission Cemetery, 490 Lincoln Street, Santa Clara, California 95050.
A Celebration of Life Mass will be held on Friday, August 22, 2025, at 1:30 p.m. at Brophy Chapel at Brophy College Prep in Phoenix. Click for livestream.