Brannan, Patrick T. (Father)

Jesuit Father Patrick T. Brannan died at Manresa Hall Jesuit Community on Jan. 24, 2017, at the age of 84.

He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 16, 1932. He graduated from St. Joseph’s Prep and entered the Society of Jesus at the Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues in Wernersville, Pennsylvania in 1950. He received both his B.A. and Licentiate in Philosophy from Loyola Seminary in Shrub Oak, New York, and his Bachelor and Doctorate of Sacred Theology from Woodstock College in Maryland. He was ordained a priest on June 16, 1963.

As a Jesuit scholastic, Fr. Brannan taught Latin and Greek at Scranton Prep and the University of Scranton. Following ordination, he taught the Classics at Cambridge University for two years before enrolling at Stanford University where he earned his Ph.D. in the classics. He then taught classics for another two years at the University of Scranton and spent a year in pastoral ministry at Fordham University. In 1973, Fr. Brannan went to Cardinal Glennon College in St. Louis where he served as a professor of philosophy, Greek and French for five years and an associate editor of the Catholic Central Union of America for a year. He taught classical literature at Gonzaga University for three years and then began an 11-year tenure at the St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, first as a professor of classics and philosophy, and then as the chairman of classics and modern languages. While working at the Seminary, he also taught the classics for a year at Saint Joseph’s University and was the director of Apostleship of Prayer for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for two years.

In 1993, Fr. Brannan traveled to Rome and served for two years at the Jesuit Curia as assistant interpreter. He returned to the States in 1995, teaching theology and the classics at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Elmhurst, Pennsylvania, for four years, and then serving two years as a spiritual director and professor of classical languages at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit. Fr. Brannan began a series of 1-year assignments in 2001, including parochial vicar at St. Peter’s Church in Beaufort, South Carolina, chaplain at St. Joseph Communications in West Covina, California, and professor of Classics at the College of St. Thomas More in Fort Worth, Texas. He then spent four years in pastoral ministry at Loyola Blakefield High School in Baltimore and in 2008 became a pastoral minister at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.