Adios, Padre Thul.

The St. Ignatius Jesuit community lost one of its most distinguished members yesterday when Father Bob Thul moved out to begin a new assignment working in Hispanic Ministry in Lexington, Kentucky. After teaching mathematics for fifty years - just over half of them spent at Ignatius - Bob retired from the classroom last year and has since kept busy doing pastoral ministry at a West Side Chicago parish and continuing his work on Math for a Change, a high school math curriculum that integrates a focus on social justice issues into lesson plans on algebra, statistics and so on. Loved and admired by Ignatius students and faculty alike, Bob has remained a visible presence in the school since his retirement by continuing to offer daily Mass there and attending Wolfpack basketball games and other athletic events. Bob easily could have remained here as long as he wished, but he quickly volunteered to go to Kentucky when he saw that his services were more urgently needed there. A fluent speaker of Spanish who spent several years teaching in Peru, Bob is following in the footsteps of a number of other Chicago Province Jesuits who have served Lexington's fast-growing Hispanic community in recent years. I'll miss Bob's presence at SICP and in the community here, but I admire his willingness to forego a quiet retirement for a new mission. I hope my readers will join me in praying for Father Bob Thul and wishing him well in his new ministry. AMDG.