John R. Cavanaugh

Who was John R. Cavanaugh?

John Richard Cavanaugh was an American priest, teacher, and scholar.

He was born in Rochester, New York, the fourth child and second son of William Cavanaugh and Helen Louise Cavanaugh.

After graduating from Aquinas Institute of Rochester in 1946, he entered seminary studies for the Congregation of St. Basil. He was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest on June 29, 1955. The following year he earned his Master's in English from the University of Toronto and then went on to teach English language and literature at the newly established St. John Fisher College in Rochester, which had been founded by the Basilians in 1948 and had its first graduating class in 1955.

In September 1959, he began doctoral studies at Saint Louis University. After completing his course work there, he returned to teaching at St. John Fisher College in 1962. He completed his doctoral dissertation in 1970. Both his Master's thesis and his doctoral dissertation were studies of certain features of St. Thomas More's writings.

In 1984, he took a yearlong sabbatical trip to Ireland, locating his ancestral home.