06-09-2024 HOF - Flipbook - Page 41
Baltimore Sun Media | Sunday, June 9, 2024
WILLIAM JOSEPH WATTERS
W
hen Society of Jesus officials first transferred the Rev.
William Joseph “Bill” Watters to a floundering church
in Baltimore in 1991, their directive to the soft-spoken
cleric was clear: Confirm our impression that the situation there is hopeless, and we’ll shut it down for good.
Lucky for St. Ignatius Church — and for Baltimore, in
general — the Jesuit priest had other ideas.
Over the next 33 years, Watters turned a congregation with paltry support into one of the
best-attended, most culturally engaged in the city and spearheaded a renovation of its historic
Italianate building. Then he used those feats as a springboard to create a network of schools
that has educated thousands of under-resourced city children.
“At the end of the day, he will have founded, in Baltimore, an educational ecosystem for
2-year-olds through 18-year-olds,” said Madeline Lacovara, a parishioner at St. Ignatius who
has known and volunteered with Watters since 2012. “Just think about that. The public schools
haven’t been able to do that, and they’ve been in business a long time.
“He reinforces what I believe, which is that God has a lot of dreams and then asks people to
make them happen,” she adds. “Bill is one of God’s dreamers.”
BorninMontclair,NewJersey,in1934,Watters,thesonofIrishAmericandairyfarmers,attended
St.Peter’sPreparatory,aJesuithighschoolinJerseyCity,
Name: William Joseph Watters
Age: 90
Hometown: Montclair, New
Jersey
Current residence: Baltimore
Education: St. Peter’s Preparatory
School in Jersey City, New Jersey;
Fordham University, A.B. and M.S;
Loyola University Chicago, M.A.;
Regis College at the University of
Toronto, M. Ed.
Career highlights: Teacher/
counselor, Loyola Blakefield
school; pastor, Old St. Joseph’s
Church, Philadelphia; pastor, St.
Joseph Catholic Church, Benin
City, Nigeria; founding president,
St. Ignatius Loyola Academy;
executive assistant to the
Maryland Jesuit Provincial; pastor
and assistant priest, St. Ignatius
Church; co-founder, Loyola
Jesuit College, Abuja, Nigeria;
founder and president, Cristo Rey
Jesuit High School; founder and
president, Loyola Early Education
Center (now The Loyola School)
Family: Five nephews and three
nieces
whereheabsorbedsomeoftheCatholicreligiousorder’s
keyvalues,includingitsemphasisonhelpingthemarginalized, putting the Gospel to practical use and fostering
growth through education. He joined the order after
graduation. He flashed his talent for influencing others
early on as a teacher and counselor at Loyola Blakefield,
aJesuithighschoolfor boys in Baltimore. Dennis O’Shea
was one of his students in the 1970s.
“He’s the kind of guy who helps you think differently about things without imposing his views on you,”
said O’Shea, a retired communications professional
who has remained close to the priest. “He helped get
all of us to learn to think critically, to analyze, to make
our own decisions.”
Watters deployed similar gifts as a priest. He helped
revitalize a dwindling congregation at Old St. Joseph’s,
a historic Jesuit church in Philadelphia, in the 1980s,
and answered his order’s call to evangelize in Africa
by becoming pastor of a church in Nigeria that boasted
a devoted membership of 15,000 people.
It was only due to a heart
conditionthatchurchleaders
returned him to the United
States and St. Ignatius.
His first weekend here
supported the perception
that the church was dying:
Just 167 people attended his
first two Masses. “I said to
myself,whatamIdoinghere?
This doesn’t make sense,’ ”
Watters recalls with a bit of a
laugh. Then he put his Jesuit
values into effect.
Watters knew the church
site on North Calvert Street
had once been home to
Loyola College (now Loyola
University Maryland). He
knew that under-resourced
city schools were leaving
their overwhelmingly Black
population behind. And he
believed the Jesuits’ history
of slave ownership left
them with an extra obligation to help. To his surprise,
when he proposed starting
a school, Maryland’s Jesuits offered $150,000 in seed
money, the Abell Foundation
pitched in the same, and the
St. Ignatius Loyola Academy
for middle school boys was
born, complete with funding
for its first coterie of students
in 1993.
Watters’ talent for imagining new projects was
matched only by his gift for
fundraising. Those who
know him say his manner is
so prepossessing, his vision
for the future so clear, that
donors find it hard to resist
contributing. The millions
he has raised improved the
academy, created and funded
Cristo Rey Jesuit High
School in Upper Fells Point
in 2007, and established
the Loyola Early Learning
Center for prekindergarten
and elementary students in
2017.
Nearly all academy
studentsenrollinhighschool,
virtually all Cristo Rey graduates have enrolled in college,
and more than 90% of learning center students read at
or above grade level. By the
time a $10 million expansion
project is completed late
this summer, the learning
center — now known as The
Loyola School — will extend
to the fourth grade, and the
“ecosystem” Watters has
built will enroll close to 700
city students, most of them
tuition-free.
“I think you’re going to see
a better Baltimore because
of what he has done,” said
O’Shea, who adds that
Watters is “closer to a walking saint than anyone I’ve
ever met.”
Watters, who turned 90
in March, has no time for
such talk. He’s too busy
keeping a full-time schedule
that includes working with
faculty, counseling clergy
and parishioners, advising
students and families, helping to oversee the construction project, and regularly
celebrating Mass at St. Ignatius, which is now the parish
home for more than 800
families.
“IfGodgivesmetheenergy
and the aspiration and the
desire, why would I want to
retire?” he said with a smile.
“I love what I’m doing. I love
the parish, I love the schools,
I love the kids and their families. And there’s work to be
done.”
— Jonathan M. Pitts
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