Rev. David G. Allen, SJ, was born on April 6, 1936, in Springfield, IL. He attended Westfield Senior High School in Westfield, NJ, and earned a B.A. in German, Political Science, and History from Albion College in Albion, MI. After studying Czech at the U. S. Army Language School in Monterey, CA, and earning his M.A. in Germanic Languages & Literature from the University of Colorado in Boulder, he entered the Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues in Wernersville, PA, on September 7, 1966. While in formation, he studied Philosophy at St. Louis University and received a Ph.D. in German Literature from Washington University in St. Louis. He also received a Master of Divinity from the Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, and was ordained on June 9, 1979, at Loyola College in Maryland.
Fr. Allen first served for a year as an assistant chaplain at Mercy Hospital in Baltimore, and in 1982, began what would become an eighteen-year mission as chaplain at Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore. During this time, he also served as superior of the Ferdinand Wheeler house in Baltimore for three years.
In 2001, Fr. Allen was missioned overseas to the Czech Republic where he taught English for five years at the Biskupske gymnasium school in Brno. He then returned to Baltimore in 2006 to serve as minister of the Loyola University Jesuit community for six years before moving to the Colombiére Jesuit community just a few miles away where he served in pastoral ministry.
In 2017, Fr. Allen moved to Manresa Hall, the Jesuit health center in Philadelphia, where he faithfully prayed for the Church and the Society of Jesus until his death on August 31, 2023.