Real name: Robert J. Dufford, S.J.

Christian music songwriter, composer, recording artist, Jesuit priest, member of the St. Louis Jesuits band.
Born 1943.

As a young Jesuit novice and seminarian in the early 1970s, he began collaborating with fellow novices and seminarians John Foley, Tim Manion, Roc O'Connor and Dan Schutte to write simple, guitar-based songs for liturgy in the St. Louis University chapel. They were responding to the needs of worshipping communities, which, after the Second Vatican Council, lacked liturgical music in the vernacular to enable the full participation of the faithful.

Father Dufford is the composer of “Be Not Afraid,” one of the most beloved worship songs of our time, appearing in the hymnals of every Christian denomination. Based on Isaiah 43:2–3 and Luke 6:20, the 1975 composition has comforted troubled hearts for more than forty years. Other well-known songs include “Sing to the Mountains,” “Like a Shepherd,” “Let Heaven Rejoice,” “All the Ends of the Earth,” “Behold the Lamb of God,” “Every Valley” and “Save Us, O Lord.” After his years with the St. Louis Jesuits, he released two solo collections based on the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius: From East and West, which follows the first half of the exercises, and The Reign of God, covering the second half.

Formerly a campus minister at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, Father Dufford recently served at the Jesuit Retreat House in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.