Background
Edward J. Sponga was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Edward J. Sponga was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Fordham University.
Sponga served as the 16th President of the University of Scranton from 1963 until 1965. Sponga made headlines when he left the priesthood in July 1968 in order to marry Mary Ellen Barrett, a divorced mother of three. He later earned a doctorate in philosophy at Fordham University.
Under Sponga"s supervision, Woodstock College recruited a number of well known theologians, including Father John Courtney Murray, Society of Jesus (Jesuit) Sponga was named Provincial Superior, or leader, of the Jesuits" Maryland province in 1960.
The province geographically included a large swath of territory from Ohio to North Carolina. Sponga briefly left his position in order to serve as the 16th President of the University of Scranton in Scranton, Pennsylvania, from 1963 until 1965.
Consoled and cared for in his old age by the Jesuits he had once abandoned, Sponga died on May 3, 2000.