Crowley, Charles G.

Fr. Charles G. Crowley, 90, died at Campion Center in Weston, Mass. on May 22, 2010.  He was born in Ireland and in childhood moved with his family to this country.  After graduating from Boston College High School in 1938 he entered the Society at Shadowbrook and did his studies there and at “the old” Weston College.  During regency he earned a degree in physics and taught that subject at Boston College.

After theology at Weston and tertianship at Pomfret, CT he taught physics and religion at Baghdad College in Iraq for two years, and physics for another two years at Weston College.  In 1957 he returned to Baghdad to our Al-Hikma University to teach physics and theology and chair the physics department while also studying Arabic.  During this time he spent several summers at the University of Istanbul in Turkey, studying special techniques of physics teaching in that part of the Arabic-speaking world.  When our men were expelled from Iraq in 1968 he did a year of Arabic studies at Harvard University, followed by a year of teaching physics at our college in Beirut, Lebanon.  The next year he taught the same subject at our Cheverus High School in Portland, ME and spent two summers working in Alaska.

Fr. Crowley obviously had a strong missionary impulse and in 1971 he traveled to the Caroline Islands in the Pacific to teach physics, math and religion at our high school in Ponape until 1987.  Travelling again, he went to our Xavier High School on the Island of Truk to teach math, physics, and chemistry, and serve as student counselor.  Moving once again, he went in 1994 to the College of Micronesia in Pohnpei and again taught math and physics while engaged also in pastoral ministry.

Health issues required him to return in 1996 to Boston, where he served successively as a tutor at our inner-city Nativity School, as an Arabic-language translator at the Boston Public Library, and in varied pastoral ministries in the city.  Because of further health problems he moved to Campion Center in 2005, but was able to continue with pastoral work until very recently.  It can be said that he began his travelling ways even as a boy, and continued with this missionary zest throughout his varied career.  He was also a congenial and helpful companion to his brother-Jesuits until the end.