Father John Witek, S.J., an Asian history professor who had taught at Georgetown for over 35 years, died Sunday morning at the age of 76.
Witek died of cancer, according to Father John Langan, S.J., Jesuit community rector.
Witek’s academic accomplishments include editing a Chinese-Portuguese dictionary written by the first two Jesuits in China and the Monumenta Sinica, a collection of letters sent between travelling Jesuits in the sixteenth century.
Witek’s students spoke of his intense passion for the material he taught. Several students remembered Witek tearing up as he talked about emotional subjects in class.
“He was talking about Tibet and the Dalai Lama … and he started crying in class,” Lucas Stratmann (SFS ’12), who took History of Asian Cultures class in Spring 2009, said. “Students really felt that he was so emotional about it.”
Victoria Roehrich (SFS ’12), who took History of Japan I with Witek in Fall 2009, was impressed with his passion for the Jesuits. Witek incorporated Jesuit history into the regional history they were learning and would become emotional as he told stories about Christian martyrs.
“It was really the right vocation for him, just to have that emotional connection was really surprising,” Roehrich said. “It really just goes to show he was really serious about his identity as a Jesuit, and you can tell he really lived the Jesuit values.”
Witek also showed a strong interest in getting to know his students. Stratmann said he found Witek to be warm and open during office hours, remembering how Witek inquired about a trip to Thailand Stratmann had recently taken.
According to Langan, Witek was born on the northwest side of Chicago in 1933. He attended St. Ignatius High School and entered the Jesuit order in 1952. He was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1965.
He completed his Jesuit training in the Chicago province, and then worked as a novice outside Cincinnati. He studied theology and philosophy at the West Baden College in Indiana.
He attended Georgetown University for graduate school and worked for Father Joseph Sebes, S.J., a noted Asian history scholar. It was then that Witek became interested in the movement of Christianity into East Asia. He later became chair of Far Eastern languages.
Langan said Witek may have underestimated his impact on the Georgetown community.
“I said to him a number of times over the past couple weeks, ‘You are loved and esteemed by many, many people,’” Langan said. “I think sometimes when I said that to him, he was a little surprised because he didn’t think about himself that way. But it was true.”
Members of the Georgetown community who wish to pay their respects may attend one of two visitations at the Jesuit residence, Wolfington Hall, on Friday from 3-5 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. Witek’s burial will be held after the 10:00 a.m. mass on Saturday at Dahlgren Chapel of the Sacred Heart.
Thank you for this article. Father Witek was a truly inspirational scholar. The team at Georgetown College Research News had the opportunity to work with him on a profile and video about his work in 2008, which can be found at http://www1.georgetown.edu/college/research/60255.html. He will be deeply missed by the Georgetown community.