CHESTNUT HILL -- One is covered with autographs, the others are not, but the footballs all have the same words on them: "Father Jack."

The game-used footballs take up plenty of space on a table in Jesuit Father John Butler's office, located in Boston College's Bourneuf House. Along with being BC's Haub vice president for University Mission and Ministry, Father Butler has been chaplain for the Eagles football team since 2010. Most people on campus, including the football players who gifted him with the balls, simply call him "Father Jack."

"Maybe they thought I prayed them over the top," Father Butler joked to The Pilot in a Feb. 24 interview.

As a young man, Father Butler played football but was forced to the sidelines due to an injury. Being a chaplain allowed him to get fulfillment from football once again.

"The football players and the coaches have been very welcoming to me, and so therefore they've kept me young," the 61-year-old said. "And the last thing is how it informed me. They've helped me remember that Boston College is a university and a school first."

The football players have the same problems as any other student, and listening to them has allowed Father Butler to grow closer to the student body as a whole. In 2026, Father Butler will be responsible for all 15,000 of BC's undergraduate and graduate students, as well as its 1,000 faculty members. On Feb. 18, the college announced that its Board of Trustees had named him its 26th president.

"I was like 'Wow, this is happening,'" Father Butler said, recalling his reaction upon hearing the news. "And then I remembered that before anything else, I'm a Jesuit, and God's going to be right next to me. And so that made me feel a lot better."

Father Butler will succeed BC's current president, Jesuit Father William P. Leahy, in 2026. Father Butler considers Father Leahy a mentor.

"I've seen him in times where people have come to him in need," Father Butler said, "or when he's making decisions, how he thinks about how it impacts everybody. And I hope I can continue to do that."

He added that Father Leahy "has solidified us as a true Jesuit Catholic school," grown the university, and kept it financially stable. Father Butler also wants to continue the school's strong Jesuit identity. In the year and a half before he takes office, he plans to listen and learn from as many people as possible to develop his "broader vision" for BC.

"I see us as a family," he said, "and I see us working as a team and in tandem, and my job is to care for the community, and the community does the bulk of the work. And so, when I think of it that way, I have a lot of hope and optimism."

To him, the fact that everyone calls him Father Jack is proof that BC is "a very relational school."

"If you believe in a Triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit, we're made to be in relationship with each other," he said. "And that's what this place is."

Father Butler was born in Atlanta and was drawn to the priesthood and religious life at an early age, but didn't follow that calling until he was 27 years old. He received a bachelor's degree in religious studies and master's degree in theology from St. Thomas University in Miami before entering the Jesuit Order. He also has a master's degree and doctorate in pastoral counseling from Loyola University Maryland, as well as a licentiate in sacred theology from BC's Clough School of Theology and Ministry.

When Father Butler was a student at St. Thomas, it was an Augustinian school. His Augustinian education inspired in him a lifelong love of the order. Father George Morgan and Father Mark Garrett, two Augistinian priests who taught at Merrimack College in North Andover, are honored with their photographs on the wall of Father Butler's office. However, when Father Butler expressed interest in becoming an Augustinian, he was told that he would be happier as a Jesuit. Indeed, he quickly fell in love with the Jesuit mission "that you're supposed to be out in the world, around God's people, doing the Gospel."

"I said, I know I'm a sinner, but I'm glad I'm loved," he said. "I want to be under the standard of the cross, and I want to be on a mission with this Jesus."

He became a priest in 2000 and took final vows as a Jesuit in 2015. Before coming to BC, he was the assistant director and inside counselor of St. Joseph Prison Ministry in Framingham.

"It allowed me to understand that no matter where you are in life, you're always loved by God," he said, "and my job is to care for all people, no matter who they are or what they've done or what's going on in their life."

Whether in prison or on a college campus, he said, ministry requires the same skills.

"You got to listen, you got to accept people where they are, and you got to love them where they are," he said.

Since 2010, Father Butler has served as Haub vice president for University Mission and Ministry, a role that makes him responsible for promoting BC's Catholic identity. Under his leadership, the Division of Mission and Ministry has grown to 10 offices.

"I'm proud of the fact that we have a great working team, that the people who actually do the work on the ground are the ones that should be celebrated because they're doing great work," he said. "I'm most proud of the fact that we've highlighted and focused on formative education."

He is also in charge of campus ministry, student formation, the Volunteer and Service Learning Center, the Office of First Year Experience, the Center for Ignatian Spirituality, and the Montserrat Coalition, which provides mentorship and support to BC students with great financial need. He previously served as director of vocations for the former New England Province of Jesuits and director of BC's Manresa House, which provides guidance to students discerning a vocation to the priesthood or religious life.

"It's been reassuring in my own vocation," he said. "It's been supportive of my own vocation, and it has reminded me that, really, God doesn't abandon us. God continues to call people to serve and care for God's people, and in so doing, to give God greater glory."

In his ministry, he has found that today's college students are "more sophisticated" and worldly than they were when he was in school. The internet and social media have made the pace of their lives much faster.

"Some of our students do too much," he said. "They don't know how to slow down and kind of smell the roses, as the saying used to be, but they're actually ahead of the curve from where I was growing up. I just wish that they knew how special they were, and they would treat themselves a little bit more nicely by slowing down and celebrating themselves a little bit more."

He thanked all of the people who have given him well wishes since he was named BC's next president.

"I'm incredibly overwhelmed and I'm deeply touched by the amount of support and care and love I've received since the announcement," he said. "That's something I would really like people to know, how grateful I am of that, and although it is an awesome responsibility, it's one that I'm excited to try to live up to, because I believe in this place."