June 5, 2020 – Bishop George V. Murry, SJ, was born in Camden, NJ, on December 28, 1948. He graduated from Camden Catholic High School and St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore before entering the Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues in Wernersville, Pa. in 1972. He went on to earn a Master of Divinity from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley and a Masters and Doctorate in American Cultural History from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He was ordained a priest on June 9, 1979.
Bishop Murry taught history at Georgetown University in the late 80’s before becoming president of Archbishop Carroll High School in Washington, D.C., where he served for five years. He then served for a year as associate academic vice-president at the University of Detroit Mercy.
In 1995, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Chicago and then Bishop of St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands in 1998. In 2007, he was named the fifth bishop of Youngstown, OH. While serving in this role, Bishop Murry was appointed chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee Against Racism, leading the charge of the church to more firmly address racism in its ranks and throughout society. He also served on the Committee for Religious Liberty and the Committee on Catholic Education. In 2018, he spoke at the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice where he invited attendees to envision a more just world through reform within the Catholic Church.
Following a two-year battle with leukemia, Bishop Murry submitted his resignation to Pope Francis in May before entering the hospital for a third-round of treatment. He died on June 5, 2020 at the age of 71.