Wednesday, November 22, 2006

OBITUARY
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(Maryland) Rev. Angelo D’Agostino, SJ, 80, died on Monday, November 20, 2006, at Karen Hospital, Nairobi, Kenya.  He was a Jesuit for 51 years and a priest for 40 years.

Father D’Agostino was born in Providence, R.I., on January 26, 1926.  He was a graduate of LaSalle Academy in Providence, and St. Michael’s College in Winooski, Vt. He received a medical degree in 1949 and a degree in surgery in 1953 from Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. He served as a doctor in the U.S. Air Force from 1953 until 1955 before entering the Society of Jesus at the Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues, in Wernersville, Pa., on August 14, 1955.

After taking First Vows at Wernersville on August 15, 1957, Father D’Agostino studied philosophy at Loyola Seminary in Shrub Oak, N.Y. until 1959.  As a Jesuit Scholastic, he pursued graduate studies in psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical School from 1959 until 1964.  He then studied theology at Woodstock College in Maryland, where he was ordained by Lawrence Cardinal Shehan on June 11, 1966.  Having completed his Tertianship at Wernersville during the summers of 1972 and 1973, Father D’Agostino made his Final Profession in the Society of Jesus on February 2, 1974, at Georgetown University.

From 1967 until 1969, Father D’Agostino taught at the Georgetown Medical School.  For almost the next 15 years he held teaching positions at the George Washington University Medical School; the Psychiatric Institute Foundation and Medical Practice; and at the George Washington Theological Coalition of Washington while director of the Centre of Religion and Psychiatry.  In the 1970s, Father D’Agostino served as president of the D.C. Chapter of the Washington Psychiatric Society, president of the Psychiatric Section of the D.C. Medical Society, president of the Italian Executives of America and a member of the board of directors of the Washington Archdiocesan Counseling Center and co-editor of The American Psychological Association Monograph and the Religious Viewpoints of Psychiatrists.    

Sent to Bangkok, Thailand in 1981, Father D’Agostino ministered to refugees with Catholic Relief Services. In 1982, he served for two years as regional field coordinator for African Jesuit Relief Services in Nairobi, Kenya. In 1984, Father D’Agostino returned to Washington, D.C., where he taught and practiced psychiatry at George Washington University until 1986.  After recovering from a second flare-up of lupus, he returned to Nairobi in 1987 and served as superior of the Jesuit Community and retreat director at Mwangaza Jesuit Spirituality Centre.  In 1992, he became the director of the Centre of Religion and Psychiatry and medical director of the Children of God Relief Institute, later known as Nyumbani home for HIV+ orphans in Nairobi, where he worked until his death.

Father D’Agostino’s passion was helping the children at Nyumbani, and he spent great effort telling others about the orphans and raising funds for their care.

“D’Ag had a gift for friendship,” says Rev. Otto Hentz, SJ, theology professor at Georgetown University and friend of Father D’Agostino. “He was readily accessible, and no doubt his alert empathy as well as his ready sense of humor were some of the reasons for that.  D’Ag picked people’s pockets skillfully.  No subtlety; he was very direct.  His skill was passion and energy.  How could people resist his passionate, energetic commitment? Besides, he sort of presupposed the willingness of people to be tapped, once he told them of the need.”

Rev. Leo O’Donovan, SJ, was ordained with Father D’Agostino and said he was stunned and saddened by his death. “D’Ag and I had been fellow students at Woodstock College in Maryland and were then ordained together.  Like everyone else, I marveled at the use to which he put his medical education and gospel zeal: indefatigable, immensely imaginative, deeply compassionate. When finally he established his hospital and began his yearly visits to Washington in support of it, I realized that a classmate had become something like a universal pastor.  I believe our loss cannot be compared with the privilege of having known this great Jesuit and the new hope his return to Christ gives us.  Pray for us, dear friend.  And let us never forget that wonderful glint in your eye.  It spoke of faith and hope and love in an inimitable way that none of us will ever forget.”

Announcements from the Maryland Province are published as needed.
This notice is archived on the web: www.mdsj.org/Deaths/DAgostino_Angelo_3.htm
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact William Watters, SJ, 410.532.1412.