Norwood Priest Expelled From Iraq Sees Little Hope Of Return-June 17, 1969

Father Mulvehill Celebrates Ordination Anniversary At St. Catherine’s After Sudden Baghdad Faculty Ouster

A Norwood priest, expelled from Iraq after 22 years as a missionary-teacher, thinks there is little likelihood of his returning because of the rapid deterioration of Arab-American relations. “Whatever prestige America had with the Arab world collapsed in 1967 after the six-day war,” says the Rev. Thomas B. Mulvehill, S.J., “and our efforts as educators gradually became suspect.”

Father Mulvehill, who went to Iraq in 1946 to teach at a Jesuit high school in Baghdad, was expelled from the country with other priests on the faculty last November. “We were asked to leave after a political upheaval in which Arab nationalists came into power who strongly resented the financial and military support America gave to Israel. The new regime taking over opposed foreign influence in any area – especially in education,” he explains.

Father Mulvehill, whose father was selectman and postmaster in Norwood before his death in 1936, was deeply disturbed by this development, but does not feel that his years in Iraq have been negated. The 55-year old priest helped develop what he believes was a “first class American-type high school” in Baghdad, and was instrumental in the creation of a college patterned after those in the United States. “We prepared hundreds of students for advance graduate study in America,” he declares, “and offered college training in civil engineering, business administration, and liberal arts to hundreds of others.”

During his nine years at Baghdad College (“actually a high school”, he explains), Father Mulvehill served as dean of students at this college, named Al-Hikma University, which means wisdom in Arabic. “Ninety-five per cent of the students were Moslems, and 5 per cent were Christians. There were about 650 enrolled altogether, and in 1962 we went coed. This was significant because the Moslems had kept women in the background for hundreds of years, and it was only by the end of World War II that they became relatively emancipated and were permitted to enter the mainstream of public life.”

The Ford Foundation gave nearly a half million dollars, and the Vatican gave $200,000, which funded the construction of six buildings in a suburb of Baghdad. In 1968, Iraq authorities notified the Jesuits that they intended to “Iraqicize” the school and that the Jesuits could continue to teach there, but that the Iraq government would put in their own president and educational supervisor. “Last fall, restive students in other schools in the city and fanatic Arab nationalists pressed for our removal,” Father Mulvehill recalls. “We went along with the new regime as best we could for a while, but cooperation soon became impossible and in November they notified us that we were expelled from the country – with no reason given. We were given five days to depart, and we all left on various planes before the week was out.”

Tom Mulvehill graduated from Norwood High School in 1931 and from Boston College before entering the Jesuit order. The young student made many friends in Norwood when he worked at the “paper store” at Washington Street and Cottage Street to help pay high school and college expenses. He was ordained at Weston College in 1944, and on Sunday celebrated the 25th anniversary of his ordination at St. Catherine of Siena Church, where he was christened in 1914. On hand were many friends and relatives, including his mother, Mrs. Thomas B. Mulvehill of 262 Vernon Street; two brothers, Ted, in the insurance business, and Jack, an attorney, and a sister, Mrs. John Kelley, all of Norwood. He has been teaching U.S. history at Cranwell School in Lenox, a Jesuit preparatory school for boys, and expects to return there in the fall.