Gonzalez, Charles G. (Father)

Jesuit Father Charles G. Gonzalez, professor of Theology, chaplain, associate pastor and leader of Hispanic ministries, has died at 85. Jesuit Father Charles G. Gonzalez, was born in Montpelier, Vt. on January 22, 1934. He attended St. Michael’s High School in Montpelier and after graduating from Georgetown University, entered the Society of Jesus at the Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues in Wernersville, Pa. in 1956. He received a Licentiate in Philosophy from Saint Louis University, a Bachelor of Sacred Theology from Woodstock College in Maryland and a Master of Theological Studies from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He was ordained a priest on June 10, 1967.

After a year of teaching Theology at Saint Joseph’s University following ordination, Fr. Gonzalez served for ten years as the first Catholic chaplain at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He then moved to the University of Scranton where he was Rector through 1987. In 1988, he returned to his alma mater to serve Georgetown University as Rector for six years.

In 1994, Fr. Gonzalez spent a year in Madrid, teaching Theology through an extension of Saint Louis University. Upon his return, he began a nine-year assignment at Sacred Heart Church in Camden, NJ, as associate pastor, where he ministered to some of the most marginalized people he had known. During that time, from 2000 to 2004, he was also the executive director of the Jesuit Urban Center in Boston.

In 2005, Fr. Gonzalez came home to Georgetown where he has lectured in Theology and been active in Hispanic ministry throughout Washington, D.C. He has also offered weekly Mass in Spanish at a local prison.

Fr. Gonzalez passed away on February 23, 2019 at the age of 85.