McCaslin, John T. (Father)

Jesuit Father John T. McCaslin died on Oct. 23, 2017, at the age of 88.

He was born in Toronto, Ohio, on June 10, 1929. He graduated from McKeesport High School outside of Pittsburgh before joining the Air Force where he served for four years.

He entered the Society of Jesus at the Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues in Wernersville, Pennsylvania, in 1955. He received both his B.A. and Licentiate in Philosophy from the Weston School of Theology and then taught English, Latin and religion at Loyola High School in Baltimore. He went on to receive a Bachelor of Divinity from Woodstock College and was ordained a priest on June 11, 1966.

Fr. McCaslin became a chaplain in the Army for several years and then served two years as a minister at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. He was assigned to Saints Peter & Paul Church in Pittsburgh as pastor in 1973, where he remained for eight years. In 1981, he began serving as the assistant director of the spiritual center at the Jesuit Community in Wernersville where he directed retreats, and in 1986 became director of the Trinity Spiritual Center outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Following a year at Old St. Joseph’s Parish in Philadelphia as parochial vicar, he returned to the Jesuit Community in Wernersville, where he spent the next 26 years as a minister and pastoral minister.