Rev. John J. Coll, SJ, was born in Pittsburgh, Pa. on June 11, 1926. He graduated from Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh and entered the Society of Jesus at the Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues in Wernersville, Pa. in 1944. He attended Woodstock College in Woodstock, Md., where he received a Master’s in Teaching, a Doctorate in German and a Licentiate of Sacred Theology. He was ordained a priest on June 17, 1956.

As a Jesuit scholastic, Fr. Coll taught German and History at Scranton Prep. Following ordination, he became a professor of Ethics at Wheeling Jesuit University until 1967 when he served as minister for Woodstock College. He then served a year as minister for Gonzaga High School in Washington, D.C., and for four years as pastoral minister at Old St. Joseph’s Church in Philadelphia.

Following a three-year assignment as minister at Loyola College in Baltimore from 1975 to 1978, Fr. Coll returned to his home town of Pittsburgh where he served for 18 years as associate pastor of St. Paul’s Cathedral. He then returned to Wheeling Jesuit University and served as a pastoral minister and assistant to the rector from 1997 to 2011.

Fr. Coll moved to the Colombiere Jesuit Community in Baltimore in 2011 and then to Manresa Hall Community in Philadelphia in 2016, praying for the Church and the Society of Jesus. He died on July 30, 2017 at the age of 91.