A funeral Mass was celebrated for Jesuit Father William Miller Dec. 11 in the Loyola Room of Jesuit Hall in St. Louis. Father Miller died Nov. 28 in St. Louis. A longtime college professor, he was 96 years old, a Jesuit for 79 years and a priest for 66 years.
Born in Belleville, Illinois, he entered the Jesuit novitiate at St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant in 1942. He pronounced first vows in 1944 and was ordained to the priesthood at St. Mary’s College in St. Marys, Kansas, in 1955. He pronounced final vows in 1960 at Sacred Heart Novitiate in Los Gatos, California.
He earned several degrees at Saint Louis University: a bachelor of arts in Latin, Greek and philosophy; a licentiate in philosophy and a bachelor of science in chemistry. He then studied theology at St. Mary’s College in Kansas and earned a licentiate in sacred theology.
Once he completed a doctorate in chemistry 1961, he was assigned to Regis College (now Regis University) in Denver, where he taught until 1967. He then went to the University of California, Los Angeles, for two years of post-doctoral work. In 1969, he went back to Regis, where he remained until 1999, taking periodic sabbaticals at Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea as a visiting professor of chemistry.
In 1999, Father Miller began serving in a pastoral capacity in the Archdiocese of Denver. In 2012, he made a list of all the parishes in Denver and the surrounding area at which he had helped with Masses and the sacraments; it came to 41 parishes.
Health concerns necessitated his move to the infirmary at Jesuit Hall in 2015, just as he was nearing 90 years of age.
There are no immediate survivors. Burial will follow at Calvary Cemetery.
