Rev. Thomas King, S.J. Award

Thomas Mulvihill King, S.J. was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1929. After completing an undergraduate degree at the University of Pittsburg, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1951 and was ordained a priest in 1964. He completed a doctorate at the University of Strasbourg in 1968, and arrived at Georgetown soon thereafter, where he remained for the rest of his life. Fr. King was a professor in the Department of Theology and a noted scholar of the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He taught courses such as the introductory course “Problem of God,” courses in Catholic spirituality and mysticism, and a course on Teilhard. He celebrated Mass six nights per week at 11:15 p.m. in the Dahlgren Chapel of the Sacred Heart for forty years and drew countless members of the Georgetown community to fall in love with Christ through his ministry. An avid advocate of the sanctity of human life from conception through natural death, Fr. King was an active member of the Knights of Columbus and the Pax Christi movement. He co-founded University Faculty for Life and served as its president for 15 years. Fr. King celebrated his 80th birthday in May of 2009, surrounded by dozens of Georgetown students and alumni who had traveled to D.C. to celebrate his birthday and his just completed 40th year at Georgetown. Fr. King passed away on June 23rd, 2009, and is the namesake of our award, having provided a brilliant witness to human life over the course of his long life. Read more here.