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John MorrisSJ (4 July 1826 – 22 October 1893) was an EnglishJesuit priest and scholar ofecclesiastical history.
Morris was born inOotacamund,Tamil Nadu, then under theBritish Raj. He was a son ofJohn Carnac Morris,FRS, an official of theEast India Company who was also a noted scholar ofTelugu, and of his wife, Rosanna Curtis. He was educated partly in India, partly atHarrow School, partly in reading for Cambridge withDean Alford, theNew Testament scholar. Under him a great change passed over Morris's ideas. Giving up the thought of taking the law as his profession, he became enthusiastic for ecclesiastical antiquities, took a deep interest in theTractarian movement, and resolved to become an Anglican clergyman.
Going up toTrinity College, Cambridge, in October 1845,[1] Morris became the friend, and then the pupil ofF. A. Paley, grandson of the well-known divine, and already one of the leading Greek scholars of the university. The conversion toCatholicism ofJohn Henry Newman, followed by many others, impressed him, and he was converted byBishop Wareing, 20 May 1846.
A storm followed, beginning inThe Times, which made itself felt even in Parliament. Paley had to leave Cambridge (which led to his subsequently joining the Catholic Church), while Morris was practically cast off by his family. He then went to theEnglish College, Rome, under Dr.Thomas Grant, and was there during theRevolutions of 1848. He was ordained aCatholic priest the following year, and returned to England.
When Morris returned to England, he was initially stationed inNorthampton, and later inMarlow, Buckinghamshire. Soon after therestoration of the English Catholic hierarchy in 1850, he was named acanon of the newDiocese of Northampton. He returned to Rome to serve as theVice-Rector of the English College (1853–1856). During this period, he becamepostulator for theEnglish Martyrs, whose cause forbeatification he greatly advanced. Returning to England, he took part in the thirdSynod of Westminster, became secretary toCardinalNicholas Wiseman, whom he nursed on his death-bed, and then served under Wiseman's successor,Henry Edward Manning, until he left to become a Jesuit in 1867.
Morris went to Belgium where he was admitted to thenovitiate of theSociety of Jesus inLouvain, and professedsimple vows in 1869. He was then assigned to the Jesuit community inRoehampton, and became the first Superior of the Jesuit Mission inOxford. He taughtChurch History from 1873 to 1874 at theCollege of St. Beuno, inTremeirchion, Wales; he was the founding Rector of St.Ignatius of Loyola College inLuqa, Malta, in 1877. He returned to England in 1880 to serve as theMaster of novices for the newly established English JesuitProvince, serving in that position until 1886. It was he who first askedMother Mary Loyola to write a book about making first communion.[2] It became an international bestseller, and she went on to publish at least 27 more books translated into multiple languages and sold around the world. He was named aFellow of theSociety of Antiquaries of London in 1889 and in 1891 he became the director of the staff of Jesuit writers at theImmaculate Conception Church, Farm Street, operated by the Jesuits inMayfair.[1]
Morris retired toWimbledon, London, in 1893. He died there while preaching in the pulpit, uttering the words, "Render to God the things that are God's."
Morris's major works were:
He contributed toThe Month,The Dublin Review,Archæologia, and other periodicals.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "John Morris".Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry cites:
Media related toJohn Morris (Jesuit) at Wikimedia Commons
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