Fr. Joe Scharf, S.J.

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

Born in 1921, Fr, Scharf entered the Society in 1938. He completed his entire course of studies in the U.S., which included a degree in science. After completing his course of studies he was asked to go to India to teach in the philosophate in Pune where he would have taken up the subjects then known as “Scientific Questions.”

Fortunately for Nepal, it proved impossible to get a visa for India at that time and he came instead to Nepal where the school had reached the upper classes without a good science teacher. He arrived in 1956 and immediately took up the work of teaching all the science subjects to the senior students: physics, chemistry, and biology.

Joe is a superb and demanding reacher. A rigorous science course was a novelty to Nepali boys, and a whole generation of Godavari students remain ever grateful for the demanding training in science they received from Fr. Scharf. In 1967 Fr. Scharf left Nepal to teach at St. Xavier’s in Patna. Again, visa problems made it impossible for him to remain there, and he returned to the U.S. later that year to take up the work of teaching mathematics in Cleveland.

After retiring from teaching he went to the Jesuit Retreat House in Cleveland where he remains today giving retreats and counselling.