Quick Facts
Biography
Michael Czerny S.J. (born 1946 in Czechoslovakia) is a Roman Catholic priest of the Jesuit order.
Life
Following his 1963 graduation from Loyola High School in Montreal, Czerny immediately joined the Society of Jesus and was ordained in 1973. He obtained his theology doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1978.
In 1979, Czerny founded the Jesuit Forum for Social Faith and Justice in Toronto, where he was director until 1989. He then became vice president of the Central American University in San Salvador and Director of its Human Rights Institute. From 1992 to 2002, Czerny served in the Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat at the Jesuit General Curia in Rome. In 1992 he founded the African Jesuit AIDS Network while teaching at the Hekima University College in Nairobi until 2005. From 2010 to 2016 Czerny was working in the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace at the Vatican.
In 2016 Pope Francis appointed him as under-secretary of the Migrants and Refugees Section.