John A. Coleman, S.J.

Message from the President
Feb. 3, 2025

Dear LMU Community:

I am saddened to share that John A. Coleman, S.J., former professor of social values in Theological Studies and a holder of the Casassa Chair of Social Values, passed away on Jan. 17, 2025, at the Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos, California. He was 87 years old.

Father Coleman joined LMU in August 1997 and was appointed professor of Theological Studies, specializing in social values. He held the Charles S. Casassa, S.J. Chair of Social Values from 2005 to 2009 and left LMU in 2009 to be associate pastor of St. Ignatius Church in San Francisco. 

A distinguished sociologist who studied the intersection of religion, public life, and policy, Father Coleman taught for 23 years at the Jesuit School of Theology and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He also held visiting professorships in Australia and Taiwan and a visiting chair at Louvain in Belgium. Father Coleman authored “The Evolution of Dutch Catholicism, 1958-1974,” “An American Strategic Theology,” “One Hundred Years of Catholic Social Teaching,” and “Globalization and Catholic Social Thought,” and he edited “Christian Political Ethics.”

Father Coleman entered the Society of Jesus in October 1954 at Sacred Heart Novitiate in Los Gatos. He was ordained on June 2, 1967, at St. Ignatius Church in San Francisco and professed his final vows in May 1979 in Berkeley.

A Funeral Mass will be held Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, at 2 p.m. PST at St. Ignatius of Loyola Church, 650 Parker Ave., San Francisco, CA 94118. The service will be livestreamed. Inurnment will be at Santa Clara Mission Cemetery at a later date. Donations in memory of Father Coleman may be made to the Jesuits West Province of the Society of Jesus, P.O. Box 68, Los Gatos, CA 95031, or to a preferred charity.

Please keep Father Coleman, his family, friends, his many students and colleagues, and his Jesuit brothers in your thoughts and prayers. 

Sincerely,

Timothy Law Snyder, Ph.D.
President