Father Robert White, SJ, is celebrating 75 years as a Jesuit.
For much of his ministry, he worked with leaders to fight grassroots problems of poverty in Africa. He currently continues academic and pastoral writing and publishing and engages in pastoral ministry in Kenya.
Father White entered the Jesuit Novitiate of the former Missouri Province at St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Missouri, in 1949. He did regency at Red Cloud Indian School in South Dakota and combined that experience with research on Native American migration to urban areas. He did his doctorate in development studies at Cornell University. In London, he directed JESCOM, a program in development studies initiated by the Jesuit Curia in Rome and linked with the Pontifical Gregorian University.
Father White was director of the Institute of Pastoral and Development Communication at the Gregorian University from 1985 to 2005. During this time, he worked with the Church’s directors of development communication, especially radio schools in Africa and Latin America, as well as community leaders from Africa and India. In the summers he would visit the communities in Africa, with generous support of Propaganda Fidei and the funding office of the Church in Germany.
He was then director of research and a member of the faculty of communication at St. Augustine University in Tanzania and at the University of Nairobi in Kenya.
From 2016 to 2021 he established a Ph.D. program in development studies at Tangaza University in Kenya. Building on his experience in Latin America and Africa, he co-authored a book which won recognition as the best book of the year 2009 in the area of communication ethics.
Father White has lectured in pastoral communication and communication for interreligious dialogue at Tangaza University College in Nairobi, Kenya, where he has been involved in the Institute of Social Ministry, School of Theology and Institute of Islamic Studies.
Now in his 90s, he continues to be in contact with community leaders in various parts of Africa.
