 A former Jesuit priest (he left the order in 1971) and contributing editor to "The Atlantic Monthly", he taught at Georgetown, Tufts, Harvard, and was a professor of English at Stanford University since 1973.John Clarke L'Heureux was born in South Hadley, Massachusetts, on 26 October 1934; his parents were Wilfred and Mildred L'Heureux.After two years at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, he entered the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) at the age of nineteen and began his path to ordination as a priest in 1956.