Jesuit Father Hervé Racivitch

Jesuit Father Hervé Racivitch, who taught English literature at Jesuit High School, died Jan. 8 in Grand Coteau, Louisiana. He was 92 years old, a Jesuit for 70 years and a priest for 58 years.

Father Racivitch was born in New Orleans on Sept. 16, 1928, to Hervé and Mary Helen d’Aquin Racivitch. His father was the district attorney of New Orleans. 

After graduating from Warren Easton High School in 1943 at the age of 14, he attended Tulane University, receiving a bachelor of arts in 1946, and then graduated from the Tulane Law School in 1948. He was not quite 20 years old, too young to sit for the bar exam.

On Sept. 12, 1950, he entered the Jesuit novitiate in Grand Coteau and pronounced first vows on Sept. 15, 1952. He was ordained a priest on July 31, 1962. 

He studied philosophy at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, and theology at the Faculté Theologique de Chantilly in France. He earned his  Licentiate in Sacred Theology (S.T.L.) at the Faculté Theologique de Lyons in 1963.

He taught at Jesuit High School in New Orleans from 1963-64 and again from 1965-71. Many of his students, even years later, considered him the most brilliant and engaging teacher they had ever had. In presenting English literature, he provided cultural context by playing music in class and discussing the art of the period. 

His commentary on the primary and secondary works of an era prompted many students to find and read other literature beyond the required texts. His enormous vocabulary, his facility of expression, his cultural refinement and his spectacular skill for construction and analysis of argumentation made him an incredibly stimulating teacher. 

Father Racivitch suffered from chronic, debilitating depression throughout much of his adult life. For a time in the 1970s and ′80s, he lived in New Orleans with family. In 1988, he rejoined the Jesuit community at Ignatius Residence in New Orleans and moved with the community to the St. Alphonsus Rodriguez Pavilion in Grand Coteau in 2013.  

Father Racivitch is survived by his sisters, Barbara Ann (Mrs. Patrick J.) Butler and Judith Mary (Mrs. James) Setchell, as well as two nephews and five nieces.

His memorial Mass was celebrated on Jan. 18 at St. Charles College, with only the Jesuit community in attendance because of the coronavirus restrictions. Interment was in the St. Charles College cemetery.