“Have you ever thought about becoming a Jesuit?”
Fr. Matthew Ippel, S.J. (SFS’13, G’25), remembers time freezing when he heard this question.
Ippel was a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service at the time trying to decide his major, and Georgetown’s then director of Campus Ministry had just thrown him a curveball. As time stood still, he remembered two others had also asked him about a Jesuit vocation.
“I was like, maybe I should ask myself the same question,” he said. “I was intrigued.”
That question led Ippel to join the Jesuits after graduating from Georgetown in 2013. Fifteen years later, after studying and serving in Peru, South Sudan, and Paris, Ippel stood on an altar in Chicago on June 14 and was ordained a priest.
“It’s been a long journey,” he said. “In some ways, it feels like it’s just beginning.”
Across the country, fellow Hoya and Jesuit Fr. Kieran Halloran, S.J. (SFS’14), was also ordained a priest in New York City on the same day.
Learn how their paths in the School of Foreign Service and Georgetown’s faith communities led them to this moment.
A Desire for Peace
Like Ippel, Fr. Kieran Halloran, S.J., enrolled in Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, set on a career in international development. He was following in the footsteps of his two older brothers, who attended the university. He also came to Georgetown with a desire to serve others and alleviate the suffering of others.
When he was 9 years old, Halloran’s father, a firefighter, was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. Over the years, Halloran developed from this experience a passion for service and the cultivation of peace between different peoples.
“My whole interest in international development started from this experience of grief, this experience of suffering and having a desire to alleviate and prevent the suffering of others as much as I can,” he said.
His first year, he attended a Campus Ministry trip to El Salvador, where he learned more about the six Jesuits and their housekeeper and her daughter who were killed in the country’s civil war in 1989. He could envision himself in the Jesuit community there, working for peace and justice, and afterward, the idea of becoming a Jesuit started to stick.
In the years following, Halloran became involved with Campus Ministry, the student-run Knights of Columbus club and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, all while discerning a Jesuit vocation.
“I feel like if I had a nickel for every time I thought I made up my mind, I’d have a lot of nickels,” he said. “But through it all, I remember being in this wonderful and supportive community of students and getting to know these Jesuits, who were really wonderful men.”
He continued to enjoy his international classes but found his experiences with on-campus faith communities and his work in the Berkley Center most nourishing. His junior year, he attended a Campus Ministry five-day silent retreat and felt his desire to be a Jesuit deepen.
“For weeks I just couldn’t stop smiling,” he said. “It was the best.”
Halloran entered the Jesuits after graduating, and in the years since, he’s taught in schools across the U.S., volunteered and taught classes to children staying in the Kino Border Initiative shelter in Nogales, Arizona, and Sonora, Mexico, and earned his master’s in divinity from the Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry.
