Patrick Francis Healy SJ (February 27, 1834 – January 10, 1910) was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who was an influential president of Georgetown University, becoming known as its "second founder".

[4] Wishing to remove them from their conditions of slavery in Georgia,[6] Michael Healy sent all of his children to be educated in the North, and at the time of his death in August 1850, he intended to join them.

[11] Healy was at first unable to find a school in the North that would accept his children,[4] but eventually found the Flushing Quaker Academy.

[12] The school was associated with the Old Quaker Meeting House in Flushing, New York (now a neighborhood of Queens),[4][13] which enrolled both Black and White students, including the three eldest Healy sons.

[18] While teaching there, he found that some students who knew his brothers learned of his racial background and made disparaging comments about him in secret.

[18] The Jesuit superiors at Georgetown were impressed by his skill in philosophy and decided to send him to Europe, where he continued his studies.

[12] "Placed in a college as I am, over boys who were well acquainted either by sight or hearsay with me + my brothers, remarks are sometimes made (though not in my hearing) which wound my very heart.

[23] Though he himself identified as White, knowledge of his mixed race background would not be a secret while he served as president of Georgetown University.

While decrying racism in the United States in an 1862 article, Orestes Brownson, a Catholic convert who knew the Healy family personally, alluded to the Healy brothers who became priests as belonging to the category of "men with large admixture of negro blood, born of slave mothers.

"[8] Likewise, while in school, Patrick Healy faced rumors among classmates that his White but slightly dark complexion was due to the presence of some "Spanish blood.

[24] In the early 1950s, Jesuit sociologist Albert S. Foley began inquiring into the history of the Healy family, culminating in a 1954 book that described their mixed race.

[24] In 1866, Healy returned to Maryland and was appointed the chair of philosophy at Georgetown University,[1] which was recovering from the damage of the Civil War.

[28][27] As early as 1869, there was talk of naming Healy to succeed Bernard A. Maguire, who was in his second term as president of the university.

His appointment as rector by the Jesuit Superior General, which ordinarily was done around the same time as the selection of a new president, did not come until a year later; the delay was the result of concern in Rome over Healy's mixed-race background.

[1] In the year following his inauguration as president, Healy described his goal of transforming Georgetown into a modern "university" to the Superior General, Peter Jan Beckx.

[31] In this way, he sought to realize what the nation's bishops, gathered in 1866 at the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, had envisioned: a great Catholic university in the United States that engaged in scholarship in every religious and secular subject.

[32] The demographics of the student body underwent change during Healy's tenure, Northerners outnumbering Southerners for the first time.

Meanwhile, the percentage of students who were Catholic increased to more than 80%, due in part to a growing Irish American middle class in the North that was able to send its sons to Georgetown.

He also gave the Society a privileged place among student groups by setting aside its own room in Healy Hall.

[7] As well as reforming undergraduate science education, Healy sought to bring the School of Medicine up to rigorous, modern medical standards.

[43] In the early 1880s, the school relocated twice within Downtown Washington, but was financially unable to move to the university's Georgetown campus as it desired.

[45] The building would rise five stories, topped by a 200-foot (61 m) clock tower, and incorporate elements of several architectural styles into a primarily Romanesque facade, evoking the ancient universities of Europe.

Groundbreaking occurred in 1877, after obtaining the reluctant approval of the provincial superior, who was wary of the cost of constructing one large, ornate building, and authorized $100,000 to be spent,[46] equivalent to $2.9 million in 2023.

He also solicited William Wilson Corcoran, the university's oldest living alumnus, to become president of the association and to raise funds.

In 1878, he sailed to San Francisco, California, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, with the president of the College of the Holy Cross, Joseph B. O'Hagan.

[47] Facing a dire financial situation, the university laid off staff, including all its lay faculty,[51] and began leasing and selling properties it owned in Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

[54] The two traveled extensively throughout Europe, visiting major Catholic institutions in France, Spain, Italy, and Belgium.

[7] His funeral was held in Dahlgren Chapel, and his body was interred in the Jesuit Community Cemetery on the university's campus.

[54] By the time of his death, Healy was frequently referred to as the "second founder" of Georgetown,[c] for presiding over a period of unprecedented growth in the university's history.