Breslin, John B. (Father)

Jesuit Father John B. Breslin died on March 21, 2016. He was 72 years old.

Fr. Breslin was born in New York City on Aug. 19, 1943. He was the son of Edward and Catherine (Sweeney) Breslin. He attended Regis High School in New York, graduated in 1961 and entered St. Andrew on the Hudson in Poughkeepsie, New York, that summer.

He studied at Loyola Seminary from 1965-1967. From 1967-1969, he was a student of English literature at Campion Hall in Oxford, England, and then taught English at Regis High School from 1969-1970. He studied theology from 1970-1973 at Woodstock College and was ordained in 1973. In 1977, he studied at Yale where he earned a master’s degree in English in 1978 and a Ph.D. in English literature in 1983.

He served as an assistant editor and director of the Catholic Book Club for America magazine from 1973-1977. From 1978-1980 he was editor of Catholic Books at Doubleday and Company in New York. He was a student of English literature at Yale University from 1980-1981. In 1981, he became the director of the Georgetown University Press and a teacher of English literature.

In 1991, he went to Dublin, Ireland, as a visiting professor at Trinity College. From 1992-1996, he returned to Georgetown University as chaplain and teacher of English. He became rector of the Le Moyne Jesuit community in 1996 where he also taught English and was coordinator of the Catholic Jesuit Identity Project. From 2002-2005, he was adjunct professor of English and campus minister at Fordham University’s Marymount Campus. At Marquette University in Milwaukee, he was a visiting professor of English from 2005-2006.

In 2007, he became a resident of Murray-Weigel Hall in the Bronx, where he prayed for the Society.