Rev. Martin Whealen, S.J.

When asked for a personal quote, Father Whealen responded with: "Be tolerant of elderly priests!"

Father Martin J. Whealen, S.J. was born in 1931 as the third of four children. His father died nine days before his first birthday. His mother was pregnant with his younger brother. A widow, his mother raised her children alone, sacrificing herself to be sure they had the best Catholic education as possible. Father says he is eternally grateful to the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet for his religious training. The Jesuits of St. Louis University High School took over for the nuns and three months after graduation, Father entered the Jesuit novitiate at St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Missouri.

He was in the novitiate for two years and after vows of poverty, chastity and obedience had two years of the Juniorate. Then it was off to St. Louis University to study philosophy for three years. At this point in a young Jesuit's training, it was time to go teach in one of the order's high schools. Father Whealen was on the first faculty of Chaplain Kapaun Memorial High School, a new school in Wichita, Kansas. There he taught religion, Latin, Greek and English. After three years of teaching, he went to study theology at St. Mary's College in St. Mary's, Kansas. Jesuits were routinely ordained after three years of theology. Another year of theology and a third year of novitiate followed.

Father's first assignment was to return to the novitiate to teach Latin and Greek. Father Whealen returned to Wichita to teach for six more years at the Jesuit school which closed in 1971. Then Bishop David Maloney asked for some volunteers to stay for a year to help with the integration of the boys from the Jesuit high school and the girls from a Catholic girl's high school into the new school, Kapaun Mt. Carmel. The year lengthened into 18.

While teaching at the new school, Father Whealan resided at St. Thomas Aquinas, a former Jesuit parish in Wichita before his assignment as assistant pastor at Holy Ghost Church in downtown Denver. After four years he was transferred to teach for three years at DeSmet Jesuit High School in St. Lous. Finally it was back to Denver to Thomas More Parish where he has been for three years.