Jan. 9, 2025 – Fr. Robert Braunreuther, SJ, was loyal to his German roots, for he was fluent in German, did his philosophy studies in 1956-59 at Pullach (it later moved to Munich), and taught German during his regency at Fairfield Prep in Connecticut. Even a favorite anecdote has a German feel.
Discovering that his students planned to bring water pistols to school for an in-class battle, Fr. Braunreuther concealed in his desk a water pistol of his own. When a student didn’t know the German word for “desk,” Fr. Braunreuther feigned a nervous breakdown, and then squirted his pistol at the dumbfounded student as the whole class gasped. Fr. Braunreuther made sure the story appeared in the 2021 A History of Fairfield Prep. The anecdote illustrates an unnoticed side of Fr. Braunreuther ministry – his willingness to step outside the box in teaching and his carefully considered relationships to pastoral colleagues and students. He remembered friends; he kept updated a long list of friends’ addresses.
Those knowing Fr. Braunreuther only formally might be surprised to learn that from the age of 16, he motored around Fairfield County in a yellow convertible, the gift of his revered father, that he closely observed friends and teachers, and that even as a teen he confidently made life decisions, such as altering his marriage plans to enter the Society. Fr. Braunreuther carried those qualities of self-confidence, reflectiveness, and need to measure up, into his Jesuit life. Space permits mentioning only a few instances of his careful responses to unexpected events.
After his family moved to from Brooklyn to Connecticut, Fr. Braunreuther enrolled at Fairfield Prep where he was deeply impressed by his Jesuit teachers. Playing sports at the prep helped him understand student-athletes later when he became the university representative for athletics at Boston College. In high school he developed a love for literature that never left him, and made his juniorate years as a Jesuit the happiest of his life. During his philosophy studies at Pullach, his facility in German enabled him to appreciate German culture and observe the permanent effects of World War II on Germany.
After ordination in 1965, he began a doctoral program at the University of Chicago on the interface of theology with psychology, his two major interests. The program was ill designed to begin with, the instructor grew increasingly remote, and the program collapsed. Fr. Braunreuther’s more than two years of course work (1967-70) never counted toward a degree. When he returned to New England, the provincial, following the custom of those years, told him to find a job for himself instead of assigning him to a particular ministry. Disappointed, Fr. Braunreuther parlayed a one-year position at Newton College of the Sacred Heart into a job at Boston College supervising resident assistants (RA’s). Success there led to his becoming director of campus ministry, which included the enormously demanding assignment of ministering to athletes. During this period, Fr. Braunreuther discovered his talent for giving regular lectures to BC students on topics from psychology to theology. In all, Fr. Braunreuther spent 24 years at BC.
By 1996, Fr. Braunreuther felt “burned out” by university ministry, and welcomed the invitation of his friend Fr. Bill Watters, SJ, to come to Baltimore and work with homeless men. Three years later, he took on retreat ministry at Faulkner, Md. (2001-08). After a sabbatical in Chicago, he became a campus minister at Loyola University, serving also as Minister in Arrupe House (2009-15). He then returned to Fairfield as Minister for the Jesuit Community (2015-18). But after a couple of serious falls at Fairfield, he somewhat reluctantly came to Campion Center in 2018. Campion Center did not stop his pastoral engagement, however, for he served the local parish, St. Julia’s, presiding at Sunday Mass and giving lectures in person or via Zoom.
Fr. Robert J. Braunreuther, SJ, was born on August 14, 1934, in Brooklyn, the fourth of the six children of John Adam and Anna Marie (Zimmermann) Braunreuther. Fr. Braunreuther’s father was a butcher servicing a wide clientele of restaurants in New York and Connecticut. The family were devout parishioners at Immaculate Conception in Brooklyn. Fr. Braunreuther spent one year at Brooklyn Prep. When the family moved to Trumbull, Conn., he enrolled as a sophomore at Fairfield Prep. He entered the Jesuits right after high school, spending novitiate and juniorate at Shadowbrook in Lenox, Mass. (1952-56). He studied philosophy in Germany (1956-59), regency at Fairfield Prep (1959-62), theology at Weston College (1962-66), doctoral studies at the University of Chicago (1967-71, aborted). Nearly all of his campus ministry was carried out at Boston College from 1971-97. Pastoral work of other kinds followed, mostly retreats and working with the homeless (1997-2018). In July 2024, while visiting a friend in Connecticut, he had a serious fall. The local hospital was unable to determine its cause, and he returned to Campion in a weakened state. Congestive heart failure proved too much for his frail condition. At 12:50 p.m. on Jan. 6, Fr. Braunreuther died.
