Bodnar, Edward W.

Fr. Edward W. Bodnar, SJ, a classical languages professor at Georgetown from 1967 to 1991, died Nov. 29 of congestive heart failure at the Jesuit residence at Georgetown. A Jesuit for 71 years and a priest for 59 years, he was 91.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be offered for Fr. Bodnar Saturday, Dec. 3 at 10 a.m. at Dahlgren Chapel on the campus of Georgetown University.

Fr. Bodnar, the only child of Andrew and Margaret Bodnar, was born in West Point, New York, September 26, 1920. Following graduation from Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C., in 1938, he attended Georgetown University for two years. In 1940 he entered the Jesuit Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues in Wernersville, Pa. He continued his education at St. Louis University in Missouri, where he earned a bachelors degree in classics in 1944, a masters in classics in 1946, as well as his licentiate in philosophy the same year.

After teaching as a Jesuit scholastic at St. Joseph’s Preparatory School in Philadelphia from 1946 to 1948, he served one year as a professor of Latin and Greek at Georgetown before returning to his own studies.

Fr. Bodnar earned a second licentiate, this one in sacred theology from Woodstock College in Woodstock, Maryland, in 1953 before going to Princeton University for his doctorate in classics. Later, in 1963, he would spend a year in Athens, Greece, studying Greek history.

Fr. Bodnar was ordained to the priesthood June 22, 1952, at Woodstock College. After receiving his Ph.D., he returned to the Jesuit novitiate in Wernersville, Pennsylvania, where he was a professor of Latin, Greek, German and rhetoric from 1958 to 1963 and again from 1964 to 1966.

In 1966, Fr. Bodnar went to the University of Freiburg, in Switzerland to serve as moderator of Georgetown students. He returned to Georgetown University in 1967 where he remained for the next 44 years. An associate professor of classics from 1967 to 1974, he was promoted to full professor in 1974 and later served as department chairman. Because the mandatory age of retirement at Georgetown was 70, Fr. Bodnar retired in 1991. But he continued to serve the Georgetown community as chaplain for the Teams of Our Lady, confessor, spiritual director and trusted friend to many of his former students and colleagues.

A viewing will be held Friday, Dec. 2, 3-5 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. at Wolfington Hall, Georgetown University’s Jesuit residence, 37th and O Sts., NW, Washington, D.C.

The funeral Mass will be offered Saturday, Dec. 3, at 10 a.m. at Georgetown’s Dahlgren Chapel. Burial will follow in the Jesuit Community Cemetery at Georgetown University.