Robert Dullahan

Rev. Robert J. Dullahan, S.J., known simply as "Rocky" to his many Jesuit brothers and friends, died on August 11, 2015 at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville.

He was a Jesuit priest for 58 years.

A native of Floral Park, New York, Fr. Dullahan was an alumnus of Xavier High School in New York City and entered the Society of Jesus at the Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. He received his bachelor's degree from West Baden College in West Baden Springs, Indiana, and went on to receive his Masters in Theology at De Nobili College in Poona, India. He also studied Hindi at the prestigious Allahbad University in India.

He was ordained on March 24, 1957 at De Nobili College.

Fr. Dullahan spent the first twenty years of his priesthood teaching English and religion in India, first at St. Xavier's School in Chaibasa and later at the Loyola School in Jamshedpur. In 1976, he returned to the States and became assistant pastor at St. Thomas Manor in Port Tobacco, Maryland. Over the next ten years, he would serve as a hospital chaplain in Saint Louis, an assistant pastor at Sacred Heart Church in Columbia, Missouri, and a counselor at Dennis O'Connell High School in Arlington, Virginia.

Hearing another call for missions overseas, Fr. Dullahan set off in 1986 for St. Peter's Seminary in Ghana to become a teacher of pastoral counseling. After five years there, he spent the next six as an assistant pastor for two churches in Nigeria before returning home in 1997 to St. Ambrose Church in Annandale, Virginia, and then to the Jesuit community of St. Isaac Jogues as a pastoral minister.

Whether serving as the pre-eminent Hindi scholar for the Maryland Province, as a beloved teacher and counselor to countless students, or by touching the lives of parishioners on both sides of the globe, Fr. Rocky Dullahan inspired all he served with his compassionate ear and warm-hearted honesty.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Friday, at 11:00 a.m., in the Jesuit Center Chapel. Burial will follow in the adjoining cemetery. Friends may pay their respects on Friday, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., at the Jesuit Center.

Gallman-Sonoski Funeral Home, Inc., Reading has charge of arrangements.