Who was Pedro Arrupe?

Arrupe College is named after Father Pedro Arrupe, S.J., a Jesuit priest who was born in Spain in 1907 and dedicated his life to helping others. 

Father Arrupe (pronounced Ah-roop-eh) studied medicine as a young man, but he abandoned his medical training to enter the Society of Jesus in 1927. He was ordained in 1936 and, within a few years, was sent to Japan to work as a missionary.

During World War II, Father Arrupe was teaching on the outskirts of Hiroshima when the first atomic bomb fell. Using the medical training he learned in his youth, Father Arrupe transformed the Jesuit residences into a makeshift hospital to care for the injured and dying.

In 1965 he was elected superior general of the Society of Jesus, a position he held until 1983. As the leader of Jesuits around the world, Father Arrupe helped guide the order through the changes of Vatican II and focused his tenure on working with the poor and marginalized.

Father Arrupe, who died in 1991, made it his life’s work to educate men and women to serve others—an ideal that now guides Jesuit schools across the world.

Read more about Father Arrupe here; watch a documentary about his life here.