Fr. Allan Starr, S.J.

By Fr. Casper J. Miller, S.J.
(From the Nepal Region’s 50th Anniversary Book, 2001)

Fr. Allan Starr was born in Hubli, India on May 27, 1937. Whenever asked about his own family and relatives, Allan used to be silent. So we don’t have much data about his family. However, we know that he has a sister, Caroline (Jenny), who is still living in Australia, and his only brother passed away years ago. Sometimes he used to speak fondly about his childhood experiences in Zimbabwe.

In August 1955, when he was about 18 years old, he came to Nepal to teach in Godavari School, as he was preparing to enter the Patna Province at that time. He was a Pre-novice for Patna Province. In 1956 he went to Bombay Province for the novitiate. In 1976, Allan came to Nepal and replaced Fr. Donnelly who went for home leave. Then onwards he remained in Nepal Region till the end of his life.

In 1980 he had a major accident by motorcycle tangling with a one-eyed bus that was on the wrong side, and he was hospitalized for three months. Between 1985 and 1992, he worked with the Godavari Alumni Association. The following six years, he was the superior at Kamal Niwas Jesuit Training Centre. A few months before his death on October 20, 1999, he took charge as the superior of the Godavari community.

Those who had a chance to be his students always speak about him as the best educator they ever had, though Allan was not really interested in teaching. He wanted to lead a poor and simple Nepali lifestyle. He, once, along with Casey Bailey S.J., and St. Xavier’s teacher Mark Lodico, had actually moved out from St. Xavier’s to Dobhighat to run a “hospitality home,” in order to welcome anybody who needed to chat and would like to have a sort of free dialogue.

The typical attitude of Allan towards pastoral ministry, when he was the parish priest, was that he always looked for the “lost sheep.” He was a great counselor for many broken marriages and people who had lost their faith. After his teaching career in the school, he went to Jajarkot District in West Nepal with the mission of spreading the kingdom of God. There he took up the aspect of reconciliation as his goal. However the C.D.O. of that area couldn’t find a reason for him to remain there, when Allan refused the invitation to teach in some campus there.

One of his interests was to study and write how liturgy and Sacraments could be molded into Nepali culture. He was a great preacher of the Examen and also wanted to teach ordinary people how to do it. He was very outspoken with radical statements which would often confuse or even upset his listeners, but he always had a clear logic and rationality. His ability to make good judgments was outstanding. He was a fantastic spiritual director and also nurtured a very good spiritual life within himself, he would read the gospels in Greek and say all the 15 decades of rosary every day. When he was in Kamal Niwas, he generated a terrific love and understanding towards youngsters, and all the younger Jesuits had a special love towards him.

However, his health was not good. Along with his night blindness, he developed something called “systemic failure” i.e. his whole body system was deteriorating – for which there was no cure. He couldn’t perspire and would suffer from heat stroke rather quickly. So he always preferred a cold climate. Allan will always remain as a man who made a difference in the heart of the people who knew him well.