Brian J. Christopher SJ was ordained to the ministerial priesthood at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 13, 2009, at St. Francis Xavier (College) Church in St. Louis. On the following day, he celebrated his first Mass of Thanksgiving at St. Matthew the Apostle Parish in Saint Louis, Missouri at 9:30 a.m.

Fr. Christopher, 34, is from St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from St. Louis University High School in 1993 and attended Saint Louis University, where he studied philosophy and Russian. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1997 after graduation. He did first studies at Loyola University Chicago from 1999 to 2002, where he earned a master’s degree in social philosophy with an apostolic and research focus on street gangs in public housing.

From 2002 to 2004, he taught theology at St. Louis University High School and, from 2004 to 2006, he was director of Revitalization 2000, Inc., working with at-risk teenagers in north St. Louis. He did theology studies at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry (formerly Weston Jesuit School of Theology) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, earning an M.Div. and a Th.M. with an emphasis on conflict transformation and religion. Brian has a particular interest in mediation and peace building.  He has been a member of Harvard’s Program on Negotiation since 2007, working as a mediator in the courts and various housing authorities in Massachusetts. He spent the summer of 2008 in Nairobi, Kenya, as an intern with the Jesuit Hakimani Centre helping facilitate workshops on peace, trauma, and reconciliation in the wake of the post-election violence.

Brian is the son of Yvonne Christopher and the late Henry Christopher. He is the youngest of seven children — Paul, Larry, Tom, Ellen, Anne, and Matt — and the uncle of 20 nieces and nephews. His first assignment will be in St. Martin de Porres Parish in Belize City, Belize.