60 Years a Jesuit

Father John Armstrong, SJ, who has dedicated decades of his Jesuit ministry to province administration and to Jesuit formation programs and education, this year celebrates 60 years in the Society of Jesus. He currently serves as the secretary of the U.S. Central and Southern Province.

Born in New Orleans, Fr. Armstrong was baptized at Holy Name of Jesus Church, a Jesuit parish, and was educated at the parish school. He entered the Jesuit novitiate at St. Charles College in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, following his graduation from Jesuit High School in 1965.

Father Armstrong completed his first studies at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, in 1971 and taught at Jesuit High School in Tampa from 1972 to 1975. He earned master’s degrees in English at the University of Chicago and the M.Div. in theology at the Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago before his priestly ordination in 1978.

Following ordination, and a year of theology studies at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Fr. Armstrong returned to Jesuit High School in Tampa, where he taught English and theology and served as Jesuit community rector and counseling department chair until 1985. He professed final vows in the Society of Jesus at Tampa Jesuit High School in 1982. He returned to his native New Orleans and served as superior of Jesuits in formation at the Jesuit House of Studies  there from 1985 to 1991 and at the Provincial Residence from 1992 to 1993.

Father Armstrong served as a consultor to the province formation assistant from 1979 to 1991, and began his decades of service in Jesuit province administration in 1992, when he was named both socius (assistant to the provincial) and assistant for secondary education in the former New Orleans Province. He also served as assistant for formation from 1997 to 2000. From 2001 to 2006, he worked in Washington, D.C., at the Jesuit Conference of the United States, as the secretary for formation and secondary and pre-secondary education.

Upon his return to New Orleans in 2006, Fr. Armstrong again served as provincial assistant for formation and would do so through the process of unification of the Missouri and New Orleans provinces into the U.S. Central and Southern Province in 2014. He supported Fr. Provincial Ronald Mercier, SJ, as socius (assistant) through 2019. In addition to his work as province secretary, Fr. Armstrong regularly celebrates the sacraments in churches around St. Louis.