![]() ![]() These twin passions found their anchor and expression when he began missionary work in Taiwan in 1956. Nanking Massacre (1937) perpetrated by the Japanese against the innocent Chinese depicted in the cartoons of bubblegum wrappers. Almost simultaneously, at the tender age of six, prompted by his innate sense of justice and compassion, his love for China began when he saw the brutal ![]() Born into a deeply devout Catholic family, it was only natural that he acquired a profound spirituality, nourished since early childhood by religious belief, which sustained him throughout his entire life. Early in life, Jack was preoccupied with two lifelong passions: love for God and love for China. In fact, in his post-Jesuit life, he continued to keep in close touch with and contribute essays and reflections to a highly respected cyber journal of religion and culture, Just Good Company. He remained a deeply religious person, a devout Catholic throughout his entire life he continued to pray and hope that the true spirit of Vatican II as initiated by Pope John XXIII to let the fresh air into the Church would one day become a true reality. But the essence of Jesuit education and its emphasis on learning continued to inform him for the rest of his life. After three decades of service as a member of the Jesuit order, he formally left the Jesuits and the priesthood in 1979 primarily because of his profound frustration with the outmoded practices of the Church Post Vatican II despite his long years of struggle trying to reform from within. In 1963 in Hsinchu, Taiwan, Jack Deeney was formally ordained and took his final vows in 1966 in Taipei. From 1961 to 1965, he was in the Philippinesĭuring which time he studied theology at the Faculty of Theology at St. Soon after, he went to Fordham University in New York, New York, where he specialized in 18th-century British literature and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy in English literature in 1961. In 1956, already in Taiwan, to prepare himself for missionary work, he went to the Chabanel Language Institute (華語學院), Hsinchu, Taiwan, and earned a Certificate in Chinese Language and Culture in 1958. Jack earned a Bachelor of Arts in literature and philosophy in 1954, followed by a Master of Arts in Renaissance literature in 1956, both from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. Soon after high school, he entered the Jesuit order, becoming a novice and later continuing his college studies under Jesuit tutelage. Ignatius, from which he graduated in 1949. Later, he attended a Jesuit high school, St. In 1941, he moved with his mother to San Francisco, California to be with his father and two brothers. As a boy, Jack attended the Edgar Allen Poe Elementary School in his native Philadelphia. ![]() Early life and Jesuit education The youngest of three brothers, Jack was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 6, 1933, to Roger Deeney and Lucy Naulty Deeney. For him this Chinese two-character phrase meant learning to be a good human being in the spirit of Charles Dickens’s notion of “mankind is my business.”Īs we remember Jack Deeney, we realize these three lines, forming a sort of triad, cogently tell the whole story of what Jack was all about as a teacher, a scholar, and, ultimately, as a human being. Above the couplet in the epitaph would be a two-character phrase, serving much like its title, “做人” of which Jack often spoke in Chinese and that he genuinely believed. A fitting epitaph for Jack Deeney would be a bilingual couplet in the words of Chaucer and Confucius to which he often referred and that he himself fully embodied: “gladly would he learn 學不厭/and gladly teach 教不倦.” In fact, Jack may have been the first person to associate Chaucer’s words with those of Confucius when he began to study The Analects in Chinese. ![]() Just like the well-known Chinese metaphor of a silkworm spinning its last silk thread with all the energy it has to give, Jack gave his all to teaching. Jack Deeney taught until his 80th year, shortly before dementia slowly but steadily claimed him. Deeney (李達三) (1931–2022) Cecile Chu-Chin Sun (孫筑瑾) John (Jack) Joseph Deeney, professor of English and comparative literature, passed away peacefully on May 24, 2022, at home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife Cecile Chu-Chin Sun (孫筑瑾) by his side. ![]()
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