page_title: William A. Rice
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: William A. Rice / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Fr. William A. Rice, SJ, Rector of Baghdad Jesuit College
context_page_description: William A. Rice, S.J. was an American-born bishop of the Catholic Church. He served as the Vicar Apostolic of Belize from 1939 to 1946. He was also the founder of Baghdad College.
context_section_description: William Aloysius Rice was born in Framingham, Massachusetts. He attended Boston College High School and in 1911 entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) teaching at Regis High School (New York City). He then studied in Spain and completed his theology studies in Valkenburg, South Holland, the Netherlands, where he was ordained a priest on August 27, 1925. He worked in administration at Boston College and as rector of the Jesuit novitiate in Massachusetts. In the fall of 1931, at the behest of Pope Pius XI, the New York Province Jesuits opened a secondary school in Baghdad, Iraq, and Rice was given charge of the project as Jesuit Superior. He was a scholarly priest and fluent in several languages. In discussions with members of the Iraqi Board of Education, his knowledge of Arabic "enabled him to refute his opponents by referring them to their own law books."
caption: With young Jesuits
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