Biography
Father Brian Van Hove, SJ, is now in a ministry of prayer after more than 50 years of pastoral ministry as a Jesuit priest.
He was born in Superior, Wisconsin, in 1948 and graduated from Superior Cathedral High School in 1966. He entered the Society of Jesus at St. Bonifacius, Minnesota, that same year.
Following novitiate, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1973 and a master’s degree in French in 1974, both from Saint Louis University. He taught at Creighton Prep in Omaha before going to Regis College in Toronto where completed his bachelor’s and master’s in divinity in 1980. He earned a master’s in theology and a licentiate in sacred theology in 1984.
He was ordained a priest in 1982 at St. Francis Xavier College Church in St. Louis.
After serving as associate pastor at St. Francis Xavier College Church for four years, he studied at The Catholic University of America, earning a PhD in Church History in 1999. It was slow work, especially when it centered on “the history of ideas,” as it required consulting primary sources from the seventeenth century in Europe.
He taught in seminaries in Ohio and Texas, before being assigned to retreat duties at White House Retreat in St. Louis. He served as rector of the Shrine of St. Joseph in St. Louis for one year before beginning his assignment with the Sisters of Mercy in Alma, Michigan, Diocese of Saginaw.
From 2010 to 2020, he served as chaplain to the Religious Sisters of Mercy in Alma, Michigan.
Publication List
Jesuit Father François Annat and his Role as Minister for Religious Affairs in 17th Century France
