A funeral Mass for Jesuit Brother Alois H. Dorsey was celebrated Feb. 27 at St. Francis Xavier (College) Church. Brother Dorsey, 88, died Feb. 20 in St. Louis. He was a Jesuit for 67 years.
Born in St. Louis, he entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) at St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant in 1949. He took first vows in 1951 and pronounced final vows in 1960.
While he had training as a printer and a baker, Brother Alois was most remembered as a cook. Over the course of more than 40 years, he served in the kitchen at St. Stanislaus Seminary, Fusz Memorial in St. Louis, Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, Mo., and at the Jesuit Novitiate in Denver.
He helped to establish the Miguel Pro House, an apostolate of presence in the Denver Hispanic community, and served there from 1995-2004, then served in pastoral ministry in Denver until he moved to the Jesuit retirement community in 2015.
On Brother Alois’ 50th anniversary as a Jesuit in 1999, then-Superior General Father Peter Hans Kolvenbach, SJ, noted that much of Brother Alois’ apostolic life had been spent in the kitchens of the formation houses and that his meals “helped sustain many young Jesuits through all sorts of circumstances. … In addition to the bodily sustenance given to so many all these years, you have given your quiet, gentle, loyal personal support to friends and family — a kind of sustenance even more important than food!”
Brother Alois is survived by a brother, Eugene J. Dorsey. Burial was in Calvary Cemetery in north St. Louis.
