Statement on Departure of Jesuit Community from Wheeling University by Rev. Joseph O’Keefe, SJ, Provincial, USA East Province of the Society of Jesus; Mrs. Ginny Favede, President, Wheeling University; and Bishop Mark Brennan, Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston
Reluctantly, we announce to the Wheeling University community and the Upper Ohio Valley community that the remaining Jesuits at the University – Rev. Ignatius Hadi Sasmita, SJ, Campus Minister; Rev. Richard McCouch, SJ, Director of the Appalachian Institute; and Rev. James Conroy, SJ, local Jesuit Superior and retreat master – will be reassigned to other apostolic works of the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus in the summer of 2022.
Faced with a declining number of Jesuit priests available for ministry, coupled with a large institutional presence in universities, high schools and retreat centers in the eastern United States, the Province was compelled to inform the University and the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston that the Province was no longer able to provide members of the Society for pastoral work at Wheeling University, which it has continued to do, even after its official sponsorship of the University ended in 2019.
The University and the Diocese are actively pursuing the possibility of having a rotation of teaching Jesuits who would spend a semester or a year at Wheeling University, so that future generations of Wheeling students might have the benefit of the Jesuit approach to higher learning. This would maintain a connection with the Society of Jesus, which for so long staffed the school.
The priests of the Society of Jesus have bought many blessings to the students and faculty of what began as Wheeling College, became Wheeling Jesuit College, then Wheeling Jesuit University and is now Wheeling University. We salute the great Jesuits who have taught or served in administration at the University during its 68 years of existence and we are most grateful to God for them.
We ask God’s blessings upon the Society of Jesus and upon the Mountain State’s only residential Catholic University, which remains grounded in and faithful to the ideals of Catholic education. May God show His kindness to both.
