Rev. Robert E. Manning, SJ, a respected Jesuit administrator and the former president of the Weston Jesuit School of Theology and provincial of the New England Province of the Society of Jesus, died on October 6 of prostate cancer at Campion Center in Weston. He was 71.

A native of Somerville and a graduate of St. Clement's High School, Fr. Manning entered the Society of Jesus at the age of 16 at Shadowbrook, the Jesuit novitiate in Lennox. He volunteered for the Jesuit missions and was assigned to Iraq, where American Jesuits had been operating Baghdad College and Al Hikma University in Baghdad since 1932. While there, he learned Arabic, studied the Koran and did his master's thesis on the philosopher Avicenna. In 1964 he participated in Pope Paul VI's historic visit to Jerusalem where, fellow Jesuits say, he was touched by the sight of Muslims, Christians and Jews living together in peace. He remained in Baghdad after the Baathist coup of 1963, returning to the United States in 1964 to study and work at Weston College.

In 1968 Fr. Manning enrolled in the New Testament doctoral program at Princeton Theological Seminary, the first Catholic, the first priest, and the first Jesuit to do so. According to his friend and successor at Weston Jesuit, Rev. Richard Clifford, SJ, his increasing involvement in the anti-war movement, however, proved incompatible with doctoral studies, and in 1970 he accepted the invitation of Rev. John Brooks, SJ, the new president of the College of the Holy Cross, to become chaplain and teach theology. He remained in Worcester from 1970-1985, serving as rector of the Holy Cross Jesuit community during his last three years.