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Home :: Provincials :: McEleney
Provincials of the New England Province:
Rev. John J. McEleney, S.J.
Fourth Provincial of Region
1944-1950
John J. McEleney was born in Woburn, MA to Charles H. and Bridget (Gaffigan)
McEleney on November 13, 1895. He was educated at Woburn High School and at Boston College, receiving an A.B. in 1918 and an A.M. in
1924. He entered the Society on August 14, 1918 at the novitiate at Yonkers, NY and then completed his classical and philosophical
studies at St. Andrew-on-Hudson in New York, Weston College in Massachusetts, and Woodstock College in Maryland. He was ordained by
Bishop Peterson at Weston College on June 18, 1930.
From 1924 to 1927 while a scholastic, he was a language professor at the Ateneo de Manila in the Philippines.
From 1931 until 1934 he served as assistant master of novices at Shadowbrook, Lenox, MA and returned to that post after a year
studying ascetical theology in North Wales, UK. In 1937, he received a PhD from the Gregorian University, Rome, Italy and was
appointed rector at Shadowbrook, Lenox, MA. In 1942, he became the first rector of the newly-opened Fairfield University Preparatory
School and the first president of Fairfield University in Connecticut.
He was appointed the Provincial of the New England Jesuit Province in 1944, serving until 1950 when Pope
Pius XII appointed him Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of Jamaica. In 1956, the Jamaica mission was elevated to diocese and Bishop McEleney
became the first bishop, and then the first archbishop, when the archdiocese was created on August 15, 1956. Most Reverend McEleney, SJ
served in the position until his retirement, on the anniversary of his twentieth year as bishop on June 16,1970, at the age of 75. On
September 1, 1970 he was named Titular Archbishop of Lorium, resigning on December 23, 1970. Then, he lived at Boston College, Chestnut
Hill, MA and Campion Center, Weston, MA. He died October 5, 1986 at Glover Hospital, Needham, MA
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