John F.X. Murphy was born on January 2, 1876 in Nashua, New Hampshire, to a family of Irish descent. Murphy entered the Society of Jesus, attending the Novitiate and Juniorate in Frederick, Maryland, from 1893 to 1898. Following studies at Woodstock College and John Hopkins University in Maryland, Murphy began teaching Latin, Greek, United States history, civics, and mathematics at Boston College High School in 1902.
Murphy completed his theological training at Woodstock College between 1906 and 1910, and was ordained in 1909. He taught history at St Joseph’s College in Pennsylvania from 1910 to 1911, and at College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts from 1911 to 1912. Murphy spent a year in Ireland between 1912 and 1913, completing his Tertianship, before returning to the United States, where he began teaching history and religion at Fordham University in New York. Murphy also ministered at Ward’s Island Prison during this time.
From 1918 to 1929, Murphy taught at Fordham University Graduate School, Regis High School in New York, Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. His final and longest teaching position was at Boston College, where he taught from 1929 to the early 1950s. Outside of the classroom, Murphy also gave public lectures on topics ranging from Irish politics to the dangers of international communism, and the persecution of Catholics in Mexico and Spain. His 1934 article entitled “The Problem of International Judaism” garnered controversy. Murphy died on August 2, 1954.
