The Rev. John R. Donahue, a theologian who wrote about the Gospel of St. Mark and taught at Loyola University Maryland, died of cancer Oct. 28 at his order’s Roland Park home, the Colombière Jesuit Community. He was 91.

Born in Baltimore and raised on Bentalou Street, he was the son of Raymond J. Donahue, a Baltimore Gas and Electric accounting manager, and Margaret Ryan, a Seton Institute nurse. He attended Loyola Blakefield High School and entered the Jesuit Fathers at the Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues in Wernersville, Pennsylvania, in 1951.

“He was a marvelous conversationalist and he was also a curmudgeon and complainer. He was beloved by his students across 50 years of teaching,” said his nephew, Michael Flanigan. “He was an ecumenist, and his students are spread among all denominations.”

He earned degrees in philosophy from Loyola Seminary at Shrub Oak, New York, a Licentiate in Sacred Theology from Woodstock College and a doctorate in scripture from the University of Chicago.

He was ordained a priest on June 14, 1964, at Woodstock College in Baltimore County.

According to a biography prepared by his order, Fr. Donahue spent most of his Jesuit vocation as a professor of New Testament studies. He also taught at the University of Chicago, Woodstock College and Vanderbilt University.

Fr. Donahue was a visiting professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome before spending 20 years teaching New Testament studies at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, and the University of Notre Dame.

He was a speaker at a biblical conference during the South African civil war in what is now Zimbabwe.

“He was amazed at how persons came on motorbikes through land mines to attend,” Mr. Flanigan said. “He said of the experience, ‘The people found joy where they found it.’ His regret was that he was never able to return to Africa.”

Fr. Donahue was named the Raymond E. Brown Distinguished Professor of New Testament Studies at St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Roland Park and taught for 16 years at Loyola University Maryland, according to the biography prepared by his order.

“He was a devotee of Baltimore seafood and took every opportunity to go to the Peppermill Restaurant,” Mr. Flanigan said. “He told family members that as a young seminarian, one of his superiors rewarded students with a treat of seasonal soft crabs. His fellow students weren’t from Baltimore and thought they were spiders. He told me he never ate so many soft crabs that day.”

Fr. Donahue was a specialist in the Gospel of Mark. He published three volumes of commentaries on the Sunday readings. He wrote the weekly “Word” column for America, a Jesuit magazine, from 1998 to 2001.

Fr. Donahue had lived at the Colombière Jesuit Community since 2017.

A funeral Mass will be held at 1 p.m. Nov. 10 at the Loyola University Maryland Chapel, 4501 N. Charles St.

Survivors include his sister, Margaret Flanigan, of Baltimore, and nieces and nephews.

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