John R. Cavanaugh

John Richard Cavanaugh (June 10, 1929 – July 26, 2007) was an American priest, teacher, and scholar.

He was born in Rochester, New York, the fourth child and second son of William Cavanaugh and Helen Louise (Kavanaugh) Cavanaugh.

After graduating from Aquinas Institute of Rochester in 1946, he entered seminary studies for the Congregation of St. Basil (The Basilians). He was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1955. After completing his course work there, he returned to teaching at St. John Fisher College in 1962. He completed his doctoral dissertation in 1970. Both his Master's thesis and his doctoral dissertation were studies of certain features of St. Thomas More's writings.

In 1984, he took a yearlong sabbatical trip to Ireland. When he returned to Fisher as Chair of the English Department, he launched an Irish literature course and became active in recounting Ireland's history and countering stereotypes of the Irish people. To that end, he helped found the Rochester chapter of the Irish-American Culture Institute, a group that brings Irish artists and scholars to Rochester.

In 2000, he was named Distinguished Irish American of the Millennium Year at the sixth annual Rochester Irish Festival, and in 2001 he was the Grand Marshal of the St. Patrick's Day parade.

A bronze statue of Cavanaugh was erected on the east side of the Fisher campus in his honor.