John Dunning Whitney (July 19, 1850 – November 27, 1917) was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who became the president of Georgetown University in 1898. Born in Massachusetts, he joined the United States Navy at the age of sixteen, where he was introduced to Catholicism by way of a book that accidentally came into his possession and prompted him to become a Catholic. He entered the Society of Jesus and spent the next twenty-five years studying and teaching mathematics at Jesuit institutions around the world, including in Canada, England, Ireland, and around the United States in New York, Maryland, Boston, and Louisiana. He became the vice president of Spring Hill College in Alabama before being appointed the president of Georgetown University.
During his three-year tenure, a number of improvements were made to the campus, including the completion of Gaston Hall and the construction of the entrances to Healy Hall. The Georgetown University Hospital and what would become the School of Dentistry were also established. After the end of his term, he went to Boston College for several years as treasurer before doing pastoral work in Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Baltimore, where he became the prefect of St. Ignatius Church. He continued to spend time at Boston College, where he died in 1917.
Early life
John Dunning Whitney was born on July 19, 1850, in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Descending from a prominent family, his father was Thomas G. Whitney and his mother was Esther A. Whitney née Dunning. Esther was a devout Congregationalist and John was raised in that faith. He was sent to several public and private schools, including Nantucket High School, before entering the United States Navy in 1866. While serving as a lieutenant aboard the schoolship USS Mercury, he had a religious conversion experience.
Conversion to Catholicism
Aboard the Mercury, he would often discuss religion with a shipmate, who argued that none of the Protestant churches were the one true church, and that either the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Catholic Church was the true church. Whitney was also able to compare the different practices of the Protestant and Catholic chaplains aboard the ship. His conversations with his shipmate convinced Whitney to consider "the claims of the Catholic church". In August 1870, the Mercury was in Newport, Rhode Island, to attend the America's Cup. The captain invited a newlywed Catholic couple aboard to return to New York City from the yacht races. While sailing through the Long Island Sound, the bride dropped a book overboard, and the executive officer had a dinghy lowered into the water to retrieve it. After disembarking in New York, the bride left the book behind, which Whitney discovered to be The Invitation Heeded: Reasons for a Return to Catholic Unity by James Kent Stone, who later became a Passionist priest known as Father Fidelis; the book was written in response to Pope Pius IX's call for all Christians to return to the Mother Church.
Having read the book repeatedly, he approached one of the ship's chaplains, Dominic Duranquet, a Jesuit, and declared that if its contents were true, then he must become a Catholic. After being instructed to pray and study further, he requested to be received into the Catholic Church, with Stone as his godfather. On November 2, 1870 (All Souls' Day), Whitney was conditionally baptized by Duranquet in the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York City.
Education and teaching
Whitney entered the Society of Jesus on August 14, 1872, in the Sault-au-Récollet neighborhood of Montreal, Canada, where he remained for two years. He went to Manresa House in the Roehampton district of London, England, in 1875 to study rhetoric for a year, and then to Stonyhurst College in Lancashire for three years to study philosophy. He taught mathematics for a year before returning to the United States in 1880, where he continued to teach mathematics at St. Francis Xavier College in New York City for four years.
In 1884, he went to Woodstock College in Maryland to study theology. The following year, he was sent to Mobile, Alabama, where he was ordained a priest on August 15, 1885. He began teaching mathematics in 1886 at Spring Hill College, and eventually became vice president of the school. After four years at Spring Hill College, he went to Ireland in 1890, where he studied theology at Milltown Park in Dublin, before returning to Roehampton for his tertianship in 1892.