Cleary, Richard T.

Fr. Richard T. Cleary, 77 died at Campion Center in Weston, MA on October 7^th, and is survived by his brother Herbert, also a Jesuit.  He was born in Winchester, a blue- collar suburb of Boston, and after local schools he attended Tufts Univerisity for two years, then entered the Society. He was at Shadowbrook when the great fire there occurred in March of 1956, and finished juniorate at St. Andrew’s. After philosophy at Weston College, he earned a degree in Biology at Johns Hopkins University, and then returned to Weston for   theology.  After tertianship at Pomfret, CT he studied pastoral theology at Andover-Newton School of Theology and returned to Weston College, now in Cambridge MA, as director of pastoral ministry, and subsequently as director Field Education for the several schools of the ecumenical Boston Theological Institute.  In 1972  he became Vice-Provincial for Formation and two years later was appointed Provincial.  During his challenging term of  office he was much concerned with helping Jesuits who wanted to leave  the Society and with establishing the new Campion Health and Renewal Center on the site of the old Weston College in Weston. From 1980 to 1988 he served as the first superior and rector of Campion Center, and after a short sabbatical at Berkeley, CA became Director of Campus Ministry at Boston College until 2001. He later looked on this ministry with  young people as the most lively and satisfying assignment in his Jesuit career. He spent the following four years as Catholic chaplain at the University of Massachusetts  in Amherst, MA. In 2006, with diminishing health, he became associate pastor at a parish in Salem, N.H. and  served  there until  several medical problems required him to come to Campion Health Center two years later. He was very dedicated to his vocation as a Jesuit and to his brother-Jesuits.