It is with great sadness that we inform you that on September 21, 2024, our brother and beloved priest, Fr. Jorge Ferrer, SJ, passed to rest in the house of Heavenly Father.
The Jesuit community and St. Ignatius Parish invite the entire community to join us in prayer. For those who can join us, we will hold a vigil with the body of Fr. Jorge Ferrer, SJ on Wednesday, September 25 at 5:30pm at St. Ignatius Parish. A funeral mass will follow at 7:00pm.
About Jorge Ferrer, SJ
Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he grew up on his family’s coffee farm in the mountains of Puerto Rico. He completed his university studies in the United States, Italy, and Spain. Throughout his life, Fr. Ferrer strove to balance his academic activity with pastoral service. He became an internationally recognized as a theologian specializing in deep topics such as Bioethics.
Parishioners in Arecibo, San Juan, Madrid, and Mayagüez will remember him for his pastoral commitment and collaboration with sacramental formation. Jorge Ferrer took his priestly vows on August 12, 1977. In his early years as a priest, he was an active collaborator at the San Juan Bosco Parish in Arecibo and the Diocese of Arecibo. He entered the Society of Jesus on July 30, 1983. After completing a master’s degree in Pastoral Counseling at Loyola University in Maryland, Ferrer returned to Puerto Rico in 1991 and began serving at the San Ignacio Parish. In 1992, he completed his doctorate in Moral Theology at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas, in Madrid.
As an educator, his teaching was not limited to the classroom. His talks, interviews, essays, and publications in different media allow him to bring important reflections on ethics and theology to a diverse audience. He was director of the School of Theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. He was active in FELAIBE for many years, serving as president during the 2019-2021 biennium.
In April 2019, he was elected president of the Latin American Federation of Bioethics Institutions (FELAIBE) for the period from 2019 to 2021. In June of the same year, he was appointed corresponding academic of the Pontifical Academy for Life of the Holy See. In September 2021, he was chosen by the Vatican to advise the Holy See on theological research on issues relevant to the world Church. Thus, Fr. Ferrer became one of the 28 theology specialists from around the world who will be part of this global Commission.
He is the author of four books and co-editor of three others. The most recent is Bioethics: the pluralism of foundation (Madrid, 2016). He is also the author of numerous articles in his field. His most recent academic articles, published during 2020, are: Acts of God or Human Choices. An Ethical Reflection on “Natural” Disasters: Ibero-American Journal of Bioethics 14, 1 (2020); The ethical status of non-human animals in scientific research, in Vásquez, E. and Polo, M. (Eds.); Bioethics: a perspective from Latin America, Lima: Ruiz de Montoya University, 2020; Pandemic and inequality in Latin America, In: Amo, R. and de Montalvo, F. (Eds.); Humanity put to the test. Madrid: Comillas Pontifical University, 2020. Also, in collaboration with S. Fábregas, R. Burgos and L. Ríos, Ethical prioritization of health services in times of pandemic: Argentine Journal of Jurisprudence. IV, No. 11 (2020).