Winter 2006 Volume 103 Issue 1 : letters
In Memoriam: Dr. E. Jean Pin
Dr. E. Jean Pin, my beloved husband and life partner for the past 27 years, died on September 17 of a bee sting while we were traveling in Italy.
Pin was a prominent Jesuit Priest. The first French priest to study sociology, he was professor of religious sociology and social classes at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Out of the Greg, he founded and directed CIRIS, the first and, to my knowledge, only international social research center.
His research has been published in the form of numerous books and articles, which have been printed in many languages. Pin was a humanist, and he spent his life serving people, never considering the risk to himself. When he was a young Jesuit, he smuggled documents for the resistance. Later he traveled the world and conducted research to determine whether the church was actually meeting the needs of the people. He developed a method of social research in which he conducted face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of the study population, and he learned 10 languages so that he could speak to the people directly. After understanding the specific concerns and unique words and expressions of the people he was studying, he then constructed a questionnaire that would “speak” to the people. Pin’s methods became the standard of all social research that followed. His book The Religiosity of the Romans (and others) debunked many popular beliefs about Catholics and their religious needs and practices and taught priests worldwide how to better serve the faithful.
He also conducted the worldwide survey of the Jesuit order and was the Secretary General of the International Conference of Religious Sociology. Pin became known worldwide when he publicly opposed the Catholic Church’s attempts to block the legalization of divorce in Italy. (See Le Monde, March 10, 1970; Time, January 11, 1971; and many other newspapers and magazines worldwide.)
In the early ’70s, he was laicized and came to America. He was appointed professor of sociology at Vassar, where he served as full professor and chair until 1990. Always learning and growing, Pin took his M.S.W. at Fordham in his 70s, and for the past 15 years he worked for Catholic Charities as a therapist and social advocate.
It was Pin’s greatest wish to create a legal fund to help women protect themselves from husbands who use the legal system to batter them during divorce proceedings. Donations may be sent to: Pace Law School, Development and Alumni Relations, 78 North Broadway, White Plains, NY 10603; please write “Jean Pin” on the memo line.
Jamie Turndorf ’80
Millbrook, New York