In Memoriam: Robert J. Braunreuther, S.J.

As a Jesuit novice, Fr. Braunreuther earned a bachelor’s degree from BC in 1958. Fourteen years later, he joined the University as resident and staff life coordinator for the Housing Office, after having worked for a year as a chaplain at the Newton College of the Sacred Heart. When the college was consolidated with Boston College in 1975, Fr. Braunreuther—by then University chaplain and director of campus ministry—was appointed to a task force formed to make programmatic and other recommendations for the transition.

In the fall of 1976, University President J. Donald Monan, S.J., chose Fr. Braunreuther to work on a University Planning Council to examine student life at Boston College. Its objectives were to express the overall purposes of the Student Affairs division within the University’s mission; examine the goals of the Student Affairs departments and offices; and to assess the effectiveness of programs in achieving these goals.  

Fr. Braunreuther resigned as director of campus ministry in January of 1978 because, as reported by The Heights, he wanted “to be a full-time pastoral person and less of an administrator.” But he remained at BC as assistant chaplain, and in addition to his everyday duties in helping foster pastoral life on campus, in the early 1980s he began coordinating and leading service trips to Haiti for BC students. The volunteers fed, bathed, and cared for patients in a home for the destitute and dying, and performed similar duties at a residence for abandoned children.

In 1987, he and Assistant Chaplain Kerry Maloney launched the Urban Immersion Program, leading a group of undergraduates in a 10-day community service effort in Boston neighborhoods. Later, he co-organized a service trip over the semester break to a parish house in Ecuador.

Such experiences gave students a greater awareness of those less fortunate, which Fr. Braunreuther likened to “a pebble in the shoe,” as he explained in a 1983 Boston College Biweekly interview: “If you’re not a compassionate person, this experience will make you one, and if you are, it will hurt like hell.”

He added, “BC students are, relatively speaking, like nobility in terms of opportunity and health. One must ask, ‘By chance of birth I am in a good place, now what can I do for those who have less?”’

Fr. Braunreuther’s leadership in service immersion led The Heights to include him in its 1985 list of nominees for honorary degrees at University Commencement (others included President Ronald Reagan, former President Jimmy Carter, artist Robert Guillemin, and rock star and humanitarian aid organizer Bob Geldof): “Experiencing poverty firsthand, students quickly learn it differs from seeing pictures of the poor in a magazine. Some returning students claim the experience reshapes their future and are inspired to enter social work as a profession.”

He also co-organized an annual retreat for graduating seniors at a Jesuit summer house in Cohasset, Mass.—a feature of the weekend, reported The Heights in 1994, was Fr. Braunreuther’s “famous lasagna”—and gave lectures to BC students on topics in areas such as psychology and theology.

In 1988, Fr. Monan appointed Fr. Braunreuther as University representative to athletics. In this new role, he was the University’s liaison to all athletes, acting as their spiritual advisor and confidant, and saying Mass when teams were away from campus. In addition to attending all home football and basketball games, and as many away games as possible, he also was expected to help athletes fulfill their education-related responsibilities.

It was a natural fit for the tall, athletic Jesuit who had played sports as a student at Fairfield College Preparatory School in Connecticut as well as at BC. He remained active for some years in basketball, skiing, swimming, and tennis. Early on during his return to BC, he had taken part in an intramural basketball league as a member of the “Vintage Wine” team and, at age 53 at the time of the new appointment, still played basketball three times a week. He had been the BC men’s basketball chaplain for two years, and during that time had also said Mass for the football team four times (the Eagles were 4-0 in those games, reported The Heights).

The position of University representative to athletics was superseded in 1994, when Fr. Monan created the Athletic Advisory Board.

Fr. Braunreuther joined other campus Jesuits in donating time and energy to support the $125 million Campaign for Boston College, launched in 1988 to help fund aid for needy students; support improvements in facilities, libraries, and service programs; and empower the University’s response to societal dilemmas, among other goals.

“Every little bit helps,” said Fr. Braunreuther in a 1990 interview with Biweekly. “I’m uncomfortable putting my hand out and asking for money, but I feel very strongly that the Campaign is a direct continuation of BC’s traditional mission: giving kids a chance to get ahead, to have a better life. This University was founded on that idea, lest we forget.

“To me, the Campaign will be of enormous help with student scholarships,” he added. “I think that’s crucial, and that’s why my hand is out there.”

After leaving Boston College in 1996, Fr. Braunreuther went to Baltimore, where he worked with homeless men. He later became campus minster at Loyola University Maryland and a minister for the Fairfield University Jesuit Community before joining the Campion Center in 2018. While there, he served the local parish, St. Julia’s, presiding at Sunday Mass and giving lectures in person or via Zoom.

A native of Brooklyn, NY, whose family had strong German roots, Fr. Braunreuther—a fluent German speaker—did his philosophy studies in Germany after entering the Jesuit order following high school and spending his novitiate and juniorate at Shadowbrook in Lenox, Mass. During his preparation for the priesthood, he worked extensively with high school and college girls as a counselor, retreat director, and therapist.

Fr. Braunreuther undertook his theology studies at Weston College and, following his ordination, began doctoral studies at the University of Chicago; however, the combined theology/psychology program in which he enrolled was closed down, and after returning to New England, he eventually took the chaplain position at Newton College of the Sacred Heart.

He was the fourth of six children of John Adam and Anna Marie (Zimmerman) Braunreuther.