Let us pray in thanksgiving for the life of Fr. Albert J. Bischoff, SJ who died on June 6, 2025 at Colombiere Center in Clarkston, Michigan. He was 98 years old. May he rest in peace.
Al was born on January 19, 1927 in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1945, he graduated from St. Xavier High School and was a novice of the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus for three months. Al left the novitiate because he felt that, at that time, he was not ready for the discipline of the Society. He then earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy (1949) from Xavier University before entering the Archdiocesan seminary. He was ordained on May 26, 1956 and ministered as a priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. As a priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Al performed parish ministry, taught religion and English at Elder High School for twelve years, took summer courses and earned a master’s degree in education (1958) from Xavier University, worked on the diocesan seminary staff (1968-1969), and was a campus minister at Xavier University (1971-1979). At the age of 52, he entered the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus on September 8, 1979 at Loyola House Jesuit Novitiate in Berkley, Michigan.
While in the Society, Al was the associate pastor of Saint Ignatius Parish in Chicago (1981-1983) and a chaplain at the House of Prayer at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois (1983-1988). He then spent four years as a campus minister at Xavier University (1988-1992). Al was missioned to the campus ministry department of Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis, Indiana, in addition to serving as the rector of the Brebeuf Jesuit Community (1992-1998). He then returned to the Xavier University campus ministry department where he ministered for over twenty-five years (1998-2024). In 2024, Al was missioned to Colombiere Center pray for the Church and the Society of Jesus.
Al was a devoted priest and Jesuit. He was easy to be with and was genuinely interested in each person he spoke with. He listened to others as if he were listening to Jesus: with rapt attention, total commitment to the conversation, and love for the person. He knew God loved everyone and, through his limitless cura personalis, helped others to accept — and return — that love.
Even before entering the Society, Al was formed by Jesuits and took those lessons to heart. He had this to say about his experience at Jesuit schools: “One thing I really loved about Xavier High and Xavier University is, I felt we were really loved in the best sense of that word. We were challenged to do our best, we were encouraged to do different things, and it was a wonderful place. I remember graduation, when I was walking out of the Xavier University field house, I had tears in my eyes. I didn’t want to leave this wonderful place.”
Al modeled God’s love for each person through his listening to and being with others. People felt cared for and loved by Al. This love also helped others to have hope. Al recounted a time when a Xavier University student said: “I just want you to know, I believe in God, but I’m not a very hopeful person. I don’t see much good in the world. And I’m a freshman, and since I’ve been here, I’ve been observing you. You always hold doors for us, you call us saints. You smile, you ask us what our name is. You let us live our lives. And I just want you to know, I’m beginning to think maybe I can live that way.”
Al was loved and respected by countless people. In addition to celebrating the weddings of innumerable Xavier University graduates, Al was publicly recognized by many institutions. Annually the Religious Studies Department of Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School presents the “Fr. Al Bishoff, SJ, Saint of God Award” to a deserving senior class member. In 2002, on the occasion of Al’s 75th birthday, the “Fr. B Scholarship” was established by friends and former students of Xavier University and is awarded annually to a full-time Xavier University student with financial need. In 2020, Al received an honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Lewis University for accomplishments consistent with the Catholic and Lasallian Mission of the university. In March of 2024, the city of Cincinnati honored Al with a resolution commending his decades of dedication and service to the Xavier University community and for the positive impact he had on students’ lives for decades. And in May 2024, Xavier University established the The Albert J. Bischoff, SJ Award which honors an individual who has demonstrated a commitment to student formation through spiritual conversion or campus ministry.
Fr. Mike Graham, SJ, states:
Al had a particular devotion to the Cure of Ars, St. John Vianney, and it’s easy to see why. Across the years I was privileged to know him, his “way of proceeding” was remarkably the same: he’d find places and times to just hang out and people would begin coming to him. Those people would bring other people and in no time flat his ministry would invent itself. Wherever he was, and no matter what his formal job title might have been, his ministry always placed people front and center. He made it a point to plant himself where people could easily find him and then lose himself in the conversations that followed. People had the sense that they could tell him absolutely anything, and especially tell him the hardest thing about themselves there was for them to say. And Al—Fr. B.—would inevitably beam and say back to them “Oh, Saint, what a joy!” The running joke, of course, was that Al called everyone “Saint” because it was easier than remembering people’s names. That’s partially true, especially because Al knew a prodigious number of people. But the deeper truth is that Al had a knack for seeing people with God’s own eyes and heart—and people instinctively sensed it. In calling them “Saints,” Al was calling people to be who God made them to be. The care he had for people and the care people had for him back was palpable. A “Saint among the Saints,” he will be missed as deeply as he is loved.
Fr. Walter Deye, SJ, shares these memories:
It didn’t matter what you called him: B, Father B, Father Bischoff, Al, Albert… He responded to any of those names with “Hello Saint”. He knew many by name, but he wanted us all to know that we are really loved by God. He greeted each person he met as a story and a gift of God to the world. He recognized in each person a wonderful beating heart of a sinner becoming a saint.
One of many memorable experiences with Albert was an all student Mass at Brebeuf Jesuit in Indianapolis. He processed into the gym fully vested with a huge red bow on top of his bald head with streaming multicolored ribbons coming down. Everybody just watched, looked, and listened. His opening line was “Saints, the wrapping is not the gift!” He felt teenagers and adults needed to hear that about themselves.
Albert Bischoff was a mentor, an approachable guide, a light, a great homilist, a pastor, a beloved university chaplain, a dear superior and spiritual director, and in all of this, he was a man of God‘s mercy and forgiveness. People from Augustana Lutheran in the Quad Cities to Indianapolis to Cincinnati and elsewhere knew of him to be a discerner of the heart of the one in front of him as one would tell his or her stories of joy, pain, hope. He’d often say to penitents: “Don’t beat yourself up!” When with him, especially when in need, one was safe. One knew that one was in the presence of kindness and the Lord‘s mercy and forgiveness.
He was and still is the best of companions, a best friend in the Lord to countless “saints”.
Fr. Mike Class, SJ, has this remembrance:
I entered with Albert, September 8, 1979. At that time Albert had already been a priest for more than 20 years in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. He had entered at Milford out of high school, but left from the novitiate. After graduating from Xavier U he went through the Cincinnati Diocesan seminary and was ordained as a priest for that diocese. It was a turbulent time in the Church, with the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, the Vietnam War, and the general unrest of the world coming out of the Second World War and the resulting Cold War.
Al began his priesthood in the midst of all of this and seemed to thrive on it. He quickly became known as one of the best preachers in the archdiocese, and had a series of assignments where he was expected to carry out the conciliar reforms.
After several of these assignments where he was expected to “fix” a parish, it got to be too much for him. He called his friend, Leo Klein, SJ, and asked if he could stay at Xavier for a while. Leo welcomed Al and he moved into a chaplain’s apartment in a residence hall, beginning a ministry that would last most of the rest of his life.
Al has always been like that. He takes people where they are, and no matter what they did or how they act, he loved them as Jesus would love them. To Al, everyone was a saint, and he called them that just to enforce that idea.
We would only see each other once or twice a year, at best, working in different states, but when we did Al would get that Al Smile and say, Michael, if they took bets on entrance day, they never would have picked that you and I would be the last two remaining after all these years! For me, the blessing has been that my classmate IS a Saint. Welcome home St. Albert!
Click here to read more of Mike’s remembrance.
