FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 17, 2021

Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ returns to his alma mater

Visits Loyola High School during the Ignatian Year

Photo credit: Paul Haring

Montreal, QC: On Monday, November 22, 2021, Loyola High School is proud to host a visit from H.E. Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, who returns to the Jesuit, Catholic high school that helped shape his faith life during what he calls “the turbulent adolescent years”. A graduate of the class of 1963, he joined the Jesuits immediately upon graduation and was ordained in 1973. He was elevated to the cardinalate in 2019.

Cardinal Czerny’s work promotes social justice, central to the mission of the Society of Jesus, and particularly work with migrants and refugees, of which the Czerny family were both. They immigrated to Canada from Czechoslovakia in 1948. His mother was interned in the Terezin concentration camp and ghetto, and his father served time in a forced labour camp. After the war, they were sponsored by friends and settled in Montreal.

Upon graduating from Loyola and becoming a Jesuit, Czerny continued his studies and was called to serve in diverse locales. In 1989, following the murder of six Jesuits and two companions at a Jesuit university in El Salvador, Czerny answered the call, becoming director, a role recently filled by one of the victims of the Salvadoran Army. At the turn of the century, he founded the African Jesuit AIDS Network, providing pastoral care and health services for victims.

When Pope Francis was elected in 2013, Czerny was involved in the drafting of Laudato Sí, a landmark encyclical calling on Catholics to “care for our common home” and later was appointed the Co-Under-Secretary of the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. His journey from priest to cardinal was an exceptional one in the history of the Catholic Church: he was a priest on October 3, made a bishop on October 4 and a cardinal on October 5, 2019.

Monday, November 22, Cardinal Czerny will visit his alma mater, Loyola High School, during this Ignatian Year. 2021 marks the 500th anniversary of St. Ignatius became a man of faith after he was struck by a cannonball as a soldier. This event led to the creation of hundreds of Jesuit schools across the world, of which Loyola is one.  

During his visit, he will speak with senior Loyola students about global issues of social justice pertaining to his mission from Pope Francis. He will also share with them the positive impact the role of Jesuit education can play in creating a hope-filled future for the world.

About Loyola High School: Loyola High School is a Jesuit, Catholic university-preparatory school located in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Côte-des-Neiges borough of Montreal. Founded in 1896 by the Jesuits, Loyola is celebrating 125 years as an apostolate of the Society of Jesus. Read Cardinal Czerny celebration of this anniversary by reading his article, “Fraternity is Humanity’s New Frontier”, written for the Loyola Today, a publication sent to the Loyola community.

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For more information contact:

Andrés Canella
Director of Communications
Loyola High School Montreal
communications@loyola.ca