Fr John Carroll SJ, founder of the Institute on Church and Social Issues in the Philippines which was later renamed after him, died in the afternoon of July 17, 2014. He was 90 years old.
Fr Jack, as he was fondly called, was born on January 16, 1924 in New Jersey and entered the New York Province of the Society of Jesus on July 30, 1943. He was a young Jesuit seminarian when he first set foot in the Philippines in 1946. After six years of study and teaching, and becoming more and more aware of social forces that oppress underprivileged Filipinos, he returned to the United States to complete his Jesuit studies and to pursue graduate work in sociology. He returned to the Philippines soon after, rejoined the Ateneo de Manila University, and became a highly esteemed teacher, mentor, researcher and activist. When he took his final vows in 1960, it was as a member of the Philippine Province.
He spent decades studying and speaking out on social issues in the country. In 1984, the Philippine Jesuit Provincial then, Fr Bienvenido F Nebres SJ, asked him to establish a think tank to help the anti-dictatorship opposition build a programme of government consistent with Catholic social principles. Fr Jack founded the Institute on Church and Social Issues and became its first Executive Director.
Even at 90, Fr Jack continued to be a keen and often witty observer of Philippine society and the Catholic Church, a trusted mentor and adviser for the staff members of the now John J Carroll Institute on Church and Social Issues, and its most prolific and published research associate. Less than a week before his death, JJCICSI launched his last book entitled Engaging Society II: Musings of an Oxymoron. That same day he was brought home from the hospital to Loyola House of Studies, following his wish to spend his last days in community with his brother Jesuits.
His funeral mass was held on July 21 at the Saint Ignatius Oratory, Loyola House of Studies located within the Ateneo de Manila Campus in the Philippines. Fr Jack is buried in the Jesuit cemetery of the Sacred Heart Novitiate in Novaliches.
