They celebrate masses, serve in the administration and teach some of Georgetown’s most popular classes. The almost 60 members of Georgetown’s Jesuit community play a wide variety of roles on campus, and their paths to the priesthood have been just as diverse. For some it was an easy decision, but for others it took years to realize their calling.

PREMED TO PRIEST

Fr. Leo O’Donovan, S.J. (CAS ‘ 56), who served as president of the university from 1989 to 2001, first came to Georgetown as a student. He originally planned to attend medical school and become a psychiatrist, but after two years at the university, O’Donovan switched to a double major in English and philosophy. After graduation, he earned a Fulbright scholarship and began his studies in France at the University of Lyon. It was in France that O’Donovan decided he wanted to join the Society of Jesus.

“I became gradually aware that what I felt really called to do in life was to be a minister in the Church,”O’Donovan explained. “So I applied [to the Society] from France and it was naturally a key decision in my life and one I’ve never regretted.”

O’Donovan’s choice was influenced in large part by the many religious men and women he had encountered in his education, beginning with the nuns at his elementary school, Corpus Christi, on Manhattan’s West Side.

“The sisters in that school were simply extraordinary,” O’Donovan said.

He recalls a teacher who, in the days immediately following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, had his class draw nativity scenes of the Holy Family as Japanese people.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything more ethically imaginative,” he said.

O’Donovan was ordained as a Jesuit priest 10 years after graduating from Georgetown, having also received postgraduate degrees from Fordham University, Woodstock College and the University ofMünster in Germany.

He went on to teach theology at multiple universities throughout the country until he became president of Georgetown in 1989, the year of the university’s bicentennial celebration.

“It was wonderful to come home,” he said. “It was a great time to be asked to lead the university.”

Georgetown had undergone extensive changes in the 33 years O’Donovan was away. Perhaps most significant was the university’s decision to admit women to the College of Arts and Sciences in 1969.

“I thought this was great news and would make for better education for everybody, and it has. I won’t say that women are better students, but I’m tempted to,” O’Donovan said.

One of the most controversial moments during his 10 years serving as head of the university involved his support of the pro-choice group GU Choice, a group that he refused to shut down until he was directed to do so by the Vatican in 1992. The group was the predecessor to H*yas for Choice, which is not officially recognized by the university as a student group.

“I saw it as an educational question,” he said. “It wasn’t that I sought to promote it, but talking about one’s ideas seems to be part of the educational process. The Catholic Church is a church of reason as well as faith.”

Upon his retirement, O’Donovan returned to New York. He is now teaching theology again, primarily at Union Theological Seminary, but has given lectures in both the United States and Germany. He’s written art criticism, served on a committee evaluating spiritual life at Yale University and is the official chaplain of the New York Athletic Club. He’s also increased his pastoral work, officiating numerous weddings, performing baptisms and leading numerous Ignatian retreats.

Corpus Christi School became a major priority for O’Donovan. After he retired from his position on the Walt Disney Corporation’s Board of Directors, on which he served from 1996 to 2007, the board offered to make a contribution to a charity of his choice, and O’Donovan had them build a science lab for the small school. He has also created an advisory board to help guide the school as it continues to grow.

LOVE LOST, FAITH WON

Fr. Charlie Gonzales, S.J. (CAS ’56), former rector of the Georgetown Jesuit community and a current professor in the theology department, started his Georgetown career in a way eerily similar toO’Donovan. He too was premed when he entered, and the two men lived on the same floor in Healy Hall as freshmen, allowing them to become good friends.

Gonzales had not considered a life in the priesthood prior to his arrival on the Hilltop.

“I had no idea of becoming a Jesuit when I came down here,” Gonzales said. “I thought I was going to marry Joan, my first love. We had it all figured out.”

But once Gonzales met the Jesuits who served Georgetown during his undergraduate years, he changed his plans.

“I thought, ‘They’re smart, they’re very worldly, but they’re also very spiritual and they’re doing great stuff for young people,'” he said.

After much reflection, Gonzales decided to abandon the future he had imagined with Joan, although they remain good friends.

“The Lord wouldn’t let go of me,” he explained. “He kept drawing me in to what he wanted me to do.”

Like the sisters at Corpus Christi who influenced O’Donovan, the nuns who had taught Gonzales in elementary school helped set the stage for his eventual decision to join the Society of Jesus.

“[The] Sisters of Mercy taught me academically and taught me how to be human and how to be a boy of faith,” he said. “I learned from them what it means to live a dedicated life, to really look out for others, to really care about your students.”

After he was ordained, Wesleyan University offered Gonzales a position as their first Catholic chaplain.

During his time there, Gonzales developed connections with the Trappist monks in Massachusetts. The monastery held several Buddhist retreats in which Gonzales participated.

“That was the beginning of a new relationship with a different spirituality, which in the end led me to become a deeper Christian,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales later became the superior of the Jesuits at the University of Scranton and then the rector at Georgetown, where he served from 1988 until 1994. He took a year-long sabbatical at the end of his term to reconnect with his father’s family and his 11 cousins in Spain.

Upon his return to the United States, Gonzales decided to take an assignment in Camden, N.J. after spending a weekend with the city’s underprivileged Latino community.

“They’re the most banged up, bereft, beaten human beings I ever thought I would meet in the United States of America. I was there for nine years,” Gonzales said.

He was inspired by his father, who had come to the United States from Spain in order to make a life for himself and succeeded.

“I felt that I needed to spend some time with Spanish-speaking people who were struggling and hold out a hand to somebody, like somebody must have done for him when he hit New York City,” Gonzales said.

After his time in Camden, Gonzales returned to Georgetown, where he began a Latino ministry. He also visits a local prison every Saturday, celebrating Spanish mass with the inmates.

Gonzales teaches a theology course, “Latino Church Doing Justice,” which focuses on the particular issues of the Latino community and includes an optional field trip to Camden.

RELIGIOUS ROOFTOP LIVING

Fr. Otto Hentz, S.J., decided to enter the Society of Jesus in 1955.

“I was serious about the faith, but I wanted to be more serious about it and live it in a way that makes sense to me,” Hentz said.

During his time in the seminary, Hentz taught at Georgetown for three years.

“That’s when I met Bill Clinton. I taught him logic,” he said.

He was ordained in 1968, and after doing his doctoral studies at the University of Chicago, Hentz returned to Georgetown as a member of the theology department. He has lived in his Village A rooftop apartment since the complex opened in November of 1979.

Hentz said he’s particularly fond of “The Problem of God,” which he teaches every semester.

“I think [it] is the most important course, because you want to get [students] thinking about basement issues, fundamental issues,” he said.

LAW AND THE ORDER

Fr. Kevin O’Brien, S.J. (COL ’88), vice president for mission and ministry, took much longer to discern his vocation as a Jesuit. After receiving his undergraduate degree at Georgetown, O’Brien returned to his home state to attend law school at the University of Florida.

“I wanted to be involved in politics, so I went back to Florida on the advice that all politics is local,” he said. “I found that my desire was a real desire to serve, to make the world a better place. There was also, though, a lot of ego and unhealthy ambition tied in there.”

O’Brien left law to teach at a local Catholic high school and eventually realized his calling to serve as a Jesuit priest.

“I found that my desire to serve was slowly transformed by God to serve not in public office, which can be a noble profession, but as a teacher,” he explained.

Although O’Brien was inspired by the Jesuits at Georgetown, it took time and distance for him to fully realize his calling.

“I’d thought about becoming a Jesuit at different times when I was a student here, but it wasn’t anything serious back then,” O’Brien said.

During his training, O’Brien spent summers in places like a leprosy hospital in India, an immigration detention center in Los Angeles, poor neighborhoods in Bolivia and a summer camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains for innercity families.

At Georgetown, O’Brien continues his commitment to the poor by leading an annual Alternative Spring Break trip to the Arizona-Mexico border.

“One of the reasons we started that was to give our students the opportunity to immerse themselves in the life of the migrant poor, and also, very selfishly, I enjoy the experience,” he said. “I need to get away on spring break and have that experience in a world very different from Georgetown.”

O’Brien previously served as executive director of campus ministry, overseeing the largest campus ministry in the country. Last year, he was appointed to his current position of vice president and is now responsible for advising University President John J. DeGioia on campus issues.

“Part of my particular role is to bring the Catholic and Jesuit heritage to bear on these decisions,” he explained.

O’Brien also teaches an extremely popular class in the theology department called “The Church in the 21st Century.”

A JOURNEY WORTH TAKING

Although O’Brien loves life as a Jesuit, he acknowledged that it can be demanding.

“One of the reasons the Jesuits were founded was to meet the needs of the church that were not being met, and there are so many needs out there,” he explained. “It’s hard to not be overwhelmed by need and find the proper balance between prayer, work, study and leisure.”

Hentz also acknowledged that being a Jesuit isn’t always simple.

“Sometimes you run into people who are arrogantly dismissive of religious issues,” he said. “But sometimes the difficulty is the Church itself. It’s slow to change in some cases and in some cases too inward looking.”

O’Donovan explained that although being a Jesuit can be difficult, it is a joyous existence.

“I love being a Jesuit priest, and I love it more now than ever before,” he said. “You’re asked to love Christ and the human family, and that’s wonderful. I get up every morning, and the first thing I say is, ‘This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad.'”