THREE senior members of the English Jesuit Province attached to Heythrop have received new appointments.
Fr William Maher, S. J. becomes the new Jesuit Provincial and is succeeded as Principal of Heythrop College by Fr John Mahoney SJ who has been Dean of Studies. Fr John Coventry S.J. has been elected master of St Edmund's House, Cambridge — a post graduate College of the University.
Fr Maher, who succeeds Fr Bernard Hall as Provincial, was born in Belfast in 1916 and educated at St Ignatius, Stamford Hill. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1935, studying at Heythrop College which was then located in Oxfordshire. He was ordained in 1948.
Fr Maher taught at Preston from 1951 to 1953 and then took charge of the preparatory school for Stonyhurst College, Lancashire. In 1959 he became Rector of St Ignatius College
and parish, Stamford Hill. In 1964 he became Rector of Heythrop College, then the major Jesuit house of studies.
Together with the late Fr Terence Corrigan, Si, the Provincial at the time, Fr Maher was responsible for the transfer of Heythrop College to London in 1970. He became Principal of Heythrop, in 1974, succeeding Fr F. C. Copleston, Fr John Coventry was Provincial of the English Jesuit Province from 1958 to 1964, At St Edmund's succeeds Canon Garrett Sweeney, who has resigned after 12 years in office to return to pastoral work in the Nottingham diocese.
St Edmund's House was founded in 1896 by the 15th Duke of Norfolk, Baron Von
Hagel and the Catholic bishops as a house of residence for Catholic clergy studying at Cambridge University.
Although retaining a core of priest members, St Edmund's developed over the years into a post-graduate college and received full recognition from Cambridge University as such in 1975. It has 20 Fellows and 60 members.
Fr Coventry was Rector of Beaumont from 1956 to 1958 and was founder secretary of the Ecumenical Commission for England and Wales from 1967 to 1970. At present he is a lecturer at Heythrop College.
Among Fr Coventry's ecumenical work has been membership of the Churches Unity Commission and work with the Association for TwoChurch Families. He is the author of "Faith Seeks Understanding" (1951) and a recent study, "Christian Truth".