Obituary Notice: John W. Witek, S.J. (1933–2010)

John W. Witek, S.J., a member of the American Catholic Historical Association since 1974 and ACHA second vice-president in 2001, died of cancer in Georgetown University Hospital on January 31, 2010. He had been professor of East Asian history at Georgetown University for thirty-five years. Within the broad scope of East Asian history in the early-modern period, he specialized in China, with a focus on the Jesuits’ presence there.

Father Witek was born in Chicago to John A. and Antoinette Witek on September 13, 1933. He attended Sacred Heart Grammar School on Huron Street in Chicago and then St. Ignatius High School on West Roosevelt Road (the present-day St. Ignatius College Prep).While at St. Ignatius he earned part of his tuition by helping with maintenance. In so doing, he gained considerable skill in dealing with recalcitrant plumbing and heating systems, which he put to good use in emergency situations for the rest of his life.

On September 1, 1952, a year after his graduation from St. Ignatius, he entered the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus at the novitiate in Milford, Ohio. He did his philosophical studies as a Jesuit at West Baden College in West Baden Springs, Indiana, and his theological studies at the Jesuit scholasticate in North Aurora, Chicago. In 1964 he earned an MA in East Asian history from Loyola University Chicago.The next year, on June 10, 1965, he was ordained a priest by Bishop Loras Lane of Rockford at St. Joseph’s Church in Aurora, Illinois.

Shortly after his ordination, Father Witek entered the doctoral program in history at Georgetown University, where he worked under the supervision of Joseph Sebes, S.J., a mentoring that he always deeply appreciated. Upon receiving his degree in 1973, he taught as an assistant professor for two years in the Department of History and Political Science at Xavier University in Cincinnati. He then returned to Georgetown, where he remained until his death.

At the interdepartmental service held at Georgetown in his memory, he was repeatedly praised for serving faithfully and effectively on a variety of committees in the History Department and in the university at large. He was, for instance, an elected member of the Faculty Senate from 1985 until his death and chaired the Senate’s Elections Committee for a number of years. Even more impressive, he was a member of the University Rank and Tenure Committee for eleven years and served as chair from 1991 to 1994—a resounding vote of confidence in his fairness, discretion, and good judgment.

The amount of time and energy Father Witek dedicated to service in the university did not adversely affect his scholarship. His two monographs were Controversial Ideas in China and Europe: A Biography of Jean-François Foucquet, S.J., (1665–1741) (Rome, 1982; Chinese trans., Zhengzhou, 2006), and Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688): Jesuit Missionary, Scientist, Engineer and Diplomat (Nettelal, Germany, 1994; Chinese trans., Beijing, 2001). For the series Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, he published Monumenta Sinica, 1546–1562 (Rome, 2002), a critical edition of documents related to the early years of the Jesuits’ relationship with China. One of his most remarkable achievements, especially for a non-native speaker of Portuguese,was his edition of the dictionary written by Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci, the first two Jesuits to reach Beijing in the late-sixteenth century—Dicionário Português-Chinês/Portuguese-Chinese Dictionary (San Francisco, 2001). The list of his substantive articles runs six pages, which is followed by the list of encyclopedia entries and similarly small but important pieces that seems almost endless.

Because of the depth and breadth of his knowledge about the cultures of Southeast Asia, his colleagues in the History Department consistently described Father Witek as irreplaceable. They marveled that while he was chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literature (2000–03), he kept the door of his office open all day long, with no secretary as buffer to protect him from the importunities of faculty and students. They marveled also at his consistent good humor, even in trying circumstances; and they approved of his stated policy of handling issues, as he would say, smiling, “with justice tempered by mercy.” He might more accurately have described his policy as “justice tempered by kindness,” because, while Father Witek was reliably realistic in his assessment of individuals and situations, he was just as reliably humane.

Father Witek was, as well, a modest and self-effacing man. He seemed to have no cognizance of the high regard in which he was held in the profession and seemed equally unaware of how much he was cherished as a person. His Jesuit brethren considered him an outstanding example of the best traditions of the order—in his scholarship, of course, but most especially in the way he lived the religious life.

Day after day during his last illness, a stream of visitors flowed to his room, from which often resounded peals of laughter. Even as he grew weaker, he continued to ask about his colleagues and students, seemingly more concerned about them than about himself. Father John Langan, rector of the Jesuit community at Georgetown University, visited him often during that time and remarked, “I said to him a number of times, ‘You are loved and esteemed by many,many people.’ He always seemed a little surprised because he didn’t think of himself that way. But it was true.”

Proud of his Chicago roots, Father Witek took endless delight in stories about Chicago politics and about the colorful and often disreputable figures who ran the precincts and claimed desks in City Hall. He considered himself nothing more than a humble product of the Windy City, but he was, in fact, a son of Chicago in whom the city could take immense pride. He is survived by his sister, Joan Witek, to whom he was deeply devoted. She lives, of course, in Chicago.

JOHN W. O’MALLEY, S.J.
Georgetown University