University Book Club Selection Bears Familiar Name

Royal readers will be back together on screen this weekend for the first of two virtual discussions centered around The University of Scranton Book Club’s seventh book selection, “He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith.” The latest book is authored by Walter Ciszek, S.J. H’76, namesake for the University’s Ciszek Hall, the current home of the Center for Career Development.

Father Ciszek received an honorary doctor of law degree from the University in 1976. After entering the Society of Jesus in 1928 and being ordained to the priesthood in 1937, he entered eastern Poland as a missionary in 1938. At the start of WWII, he was arrested by the Russian secret police and spent five years in Moscow prisons. Sentenced to 10 more years in prison as “a spy of the Vatican,” he was sent north to a penal camp, where he labored in mines and construction projects until the end of his sentence. Father Ciszek returned to the U.S. in 1963 as part of an exchange agreement with the Soviet Union. The Shenandoah native, who passed away in 1984, is also the author of “With God in Russia.”

Dedicated in 2005, Ciszek Hall was originally designed to hold a 15,000-book library, a chapel, offices, a garden and space for social activities.

To learn more about The University of Scranton Book Club and to receive notifications of future book selections, visit Scranton.edu/alumnibookclub.