60 Years a Jesuit in 2025

Father William Farge, SJ, this year celebrates the 60th anniversary of his entrance into the Society of Jesus. After spending much of his Jesuit life teaching English and religion at Jesuit high schools in Japan and teaching Japanese at Jesuit universities in the United States, he is now a spiritual director for seminarians in Louisiana.

Born in Houston, Fr. Farge entered the Society of Jesus in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, in 1965, after graduating from Strake Jesuit College Preparatory School. He studied philosophy at Spring Hill College and Loyola University New Orleans, and Japanese at the Jesuit Language School in Kamakura, Japan.

Father Farge did his Jesuit regency at Hiroshima Gakuin High School in Japan from 1973 to 1975. He was ordained a priest in 1978 while completing his theology studies in Tokyo. He completed tertianship in Manila, the Philippines, in 1983. After a pastoral assignment as retreat director at the Jesuit Spirituality Center at St. Charles College in Grand Coteau, Fr. Farge returned to Japan to teach religion and English at Rokko Gakuin High School in Kobe, Japan, from 1982 to 1990. He professed his final vows in the Society of Jesus in 1983.

On his return to the United States, he attended Indiana University where he received a Master of Arts (1995) and Ph.D. (1997) in Japanese language and culture. Father Farge served as associate professor of Japanese at Loyola University New Orleans, and at Georgetown University from 2006 to 2008. He served for one year in the Ateneo de Manila Jesuit Community in Quezon City in the Philippines, where he was a formation staff member and spiritual director to Jesuit scholastics from Asia.

Father Farge retired from Loyola University New Orleans as Professor Emeritus in 2015 and began a ministry as a professor of theological studies and spiritual director for seminarians at St. Joseph Abbey and Seminary College in St. Benedict, Louisiana. He returned to New Orleans in 2021, where he now serves as a spiritual director to diocesan seminarians at Notre Dame Seminary and as a pastoral minister at Jesuit High School.

Father Farge has published on topics related to Jesuit history in Japan, including The Japanese Translations of the Jesuit Mission Press, 1590-1614, an in-depth study of the Buddhist terminology used to translate European Catholic texts into Japanese and A Christian Samurai: The Trials of Baba Bunkō, published by Catholic University Press.