www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall The Life and Death of Jesuit Raymond Gawronski

Born in Brooklyn on Sept. 9, 1950, Gawronski grew up New York and New Jersey and graduated with a degree in philosophy from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., in 1971. He earned a master’s degree in world religions from Syracuse University, where he studied under the religious-studies scholar Huston Smith.

In 1977, Gawronski entered the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus. Subsequently, he earned a master’s degree in Asian studies at St. Michael's Institute of Gonzaga University and a master of divinity degree from the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif.

Ordained a priest in 1986, he completed further studies in Rome, earning a licentiate in theology at the Pontifical Oriental Institute and a doctorate in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Father Gawronski had priestly faculties in both the Roman and Byzantine rites; and in addition to being a Jesuit, he was an associate member of Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Redwood Valley, Calif.

Over the years, he taught theology at Marquette University in Milwaukee and served as a spiritual director and theology professor at St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver. There, he helped to establish the spirituality year, with its Ignatian characteristics: a month of itinerancy and a 30-day retreat following the Spiritual Exercises.