Rev. Peter W. Gyves, SJ, was born on August 25, 1951, in Brooklyn, NY. He attended Xavier High School in New York City and graduated with a degree in Biology from Boston College. He went on to receive his Medical Degree from Georgetown University, a master’s in theology from Boston College, and a master’s in public health from Johns Hopkins University. It wasn’t until he was nearly 52 that he entered the Society of Jesus at the St. Andrew Hall Novitiate in Syracuse, NY, on August 23, 2003, having received dispensation in spite of his age from Father General Kolvenbach. During his formation, he earned a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, MA, and was ordained a priest on June 14, 2008, at Fordham University, Bronx, NY.
Long before entering the Jesuits, Fr. Gyves was a board-certified pediatrician and a pediatric endocrinologist. He also served as a scientific researcher at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Following the 1989 assassination of six Jesuit priests and two female co-workers in El Salvador, Fr. Gyves felt the call to go there and provide health care to those on the margins. It was this experience and the further inspiration of Jesuits he came to know, that led him to heeding the call to enter the Society.
Following his ordination to the priesthood, Fr. Gyves served for a year at St. Ignatius Church in New York City and then as a retreat minister at the St. Ignatius Retreat House in Manhasset, NY. He also spent several months working with JRS in West Africa and serving the poor in Guatemala. Then, after a year as parochial vicar at St. Aedan’s Church in Jersey City, Fr. Gyves moved to San Diego, where he worked for two years at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. It was here that in 2015 he founded the organization that would define his career—A Faith That Does Justice. In 2016, he brought the work to Boston, and since then, it has developed into a national organization. A Faith That Does Justice is an interfaith network that challenges people to experience God by living their faith intentionally in service to others, especially the marginalized of the world.
Fr. Gyves remained active until his death on August 7, 2024, just shy of his 73rd birthday.