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 Vicar Apostolic of Jamaica and Titular Bishop of Zeugma. In 1956, the Jamaica mission was elevated to a diocese and Bishop McEleney became the first Bishop of Kingston, Jamaica. On September 14, 1967, the Diocese of Kingston, Jamaica, that encompassed the island of Jamaica, was divided to form a new diocese, Montego Bay, and the Diocese of Kingston in Jamaica became an Archdiocese with Bishop McEleney the first archbishop. Most Reverend McEleney, SJ served as Archbishop 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 when he was appointed Archbishop emertius of Kingston in Jamaica. At that time, he returned to the United States and lived at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA and Campion Center, Weston, MA. He died October 5, 1986 at Glover Hospital, Needham, MA.