Andrew Greeley

Andrew M. Greeley (February 5, 1928 – May 29, 2013) was an American Catholic priest, sociologist, journalist and popular novelist. Greeley was a professor of sociology at the University of Arizona and the University of Chicago, and a research associate with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). For many years, he wrote a weekly column for the Chicago Sun-Times and contributed regularly to The New York Times, the National Catholic Reporter, America, and Commonweal. Life and career Greeley was born into a large Irish Catholic family in Oak Park, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago) in 1928. He grew up during the Great Depression in Chicago's Austin neighborhood, where he attended St. Angela Elementary School, and by the second grade, he knew that he wanted to be a priest. After studying at Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago, Greeley received an AB degree from St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Chicago in 1950, a Bachelor of Sacred Theology (STB) in 1952, and a Licentiate of Sacred Theology (STL) in 1954, when he was ordained for the Archdiocese of Chicago. From 1954 to 1964, Greeley served as an assistant pastor at Christ the King parish in Chicago, during which time he studied sociology at the University of Chicago. His first book, The Church in the Suburbs (1958), was drawn from notes a sociology professor had encouraged him to take describing his experiences. He received a Master of Arts in 1961 and a PhD in 1962. His doctoral dissertation dealt with the influence of religion on the career plans of 1961 college graduates. At various times, Greeley was a professor at the University of Arizona, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago. He was denied tenure by the University of Chicago in 1973, despite having been a faculty member there for a decade and having published dozens of books; he attributed the denial to anti-Catholic prejudice, although a colleague said his cantankerous temperament was more to blame. In 1991, he was granted a professorship in social science at the University.