Office of Public Relations

Pomona, NJ 08240

 

 

Father Jeff Burton, S.J. to Celebrate

Golden Jubilee, August 1

Stockton College, ACCC Campus Minister Celebrates

50^th Anniversary as a Jesuit

 

For Immediate Release

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Contact: Tim Kelly

Stockton Public Relations (609) 652-4950

 

Galloway Twp. Father Jeff Burton, S.J., Priest in Residence at the Church of the Assumption Parish in Galloway Twp. and longtime Campus Minister at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and Atlantic Cape Community College will celebrate his Golden Jubilee as a Jesuit on August 1.

 

Fr. Burton entered the Jesuit Order on July 31, 1954 and will mark a half century of service beginning with a 3 p.m. Mass at the Church of the Assumption, White Horse Pike and Pomona Road, Galloway. The Mass will be followed by a cocktail reception at 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 dinner at the Rams Head Inn, Route 30 at the Garden State Parkway in Absecon.

 

Tickets for the affair are $60 per person, with a portion of all proceeds being used to help build a shrine to Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta.

 

For more information or to order tickets, please call Mr Gregory McIlhenney, Association Director, Cathlolic Campus Ministry Center, at 609-804-0200

 

Father Jeff as he is affectionately known to the College community, has been Campus Minister at Stockton and ACCC since 1989. He founded the Newman Club at Stockton and advises the Deep Sea Fishing Club. He taught Spanish at ACCC from 1992 until 1999 and has organized trips to Ireland, Spain, Italy and the Holy Land for community members. Fluent in Spanish, Father Jeff has been in Residence in area Parishes doing Hispanic Ministry in Atlantic City and in Pleasantville. He has also served at St. James in Ventnor from 1998 to 2002.

 

Father Jeff spearheaded efforts resulting in the Camden Diocese and House of Charity building the new Campus Ministry Center on Pomona Road which opened its doors to the entire College Community in 2003.

 

A native of Baltimore, Md., Father Burton attended Loyola High School in Towson, Md. Before entering Religious Life. After becoming a Jesuit, Father Burton took his first vows in 1956 and attended Juniorate and College at Wernersville Pa. until July of 1958. He attended Loyola Seminary (Division of Fordham University) in the Bronx, NY, from 1958 to 1961. For his teaching and Missionary years, he was assigned to Colegio San Mateo in Chile after completing Spanish Language studies in Mexico. He then taught in Jesuit School from 1961 to 1964 and received his BA in History and MA in teaching (Education) in 1961 and his Licentiate in Philosophy in June of that year from Fordham. His Theology studies continued in Colegio Maximo de San Jose Buenos Aires until November of 1966.

 

Father Burton returned to the United States to Woodstock College, Md., for Ordination in June of 1967and completed his Master of Arts degree in Theology in June of 1968.

 

After serving in Baltimore, and then performing Appalachian Ministry and serving as Pastor and teaching social studies in public schools in North Carolina, he founded the Appalachian Trail Hikers Hostel. He then served as Diocesan Youth Director for the Diocese of Charlotte, NC from 1978 to 1982, opening a Youth Ministry Facility in Flat Rock, NC.

 

He moved to New Jersey in 1982, serving the Hispanic Ministry in the Diocese of Camden. He was assigned as the first Jesuit Pastor in the Inner City Parish of Holy Name. He served as Vicar for Hispanic Ministry for the Diocese of Camden from 1987 to 1988 before coming to Stockton, ACCC and the Church of the Assumption.