Andrew M. Greeley

An American Catholic priest, Andrew M. Greeley (born 1928) wrote sociological studies of American religion and of ethnicity, popular presentations of the Catholic faith, and a number of novels.

Andrew M. Greeley was born in Oak Park, Illinois, February 5, 1928. From an early age he determined to become a priest, attending a seminary high school and college. He received an A.B. from St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Chicago in 1950, an S.T.B. in 1952, and an S.T.L. in 1954, when he was ordained. From 1954 to 1964 he served as an assistant pastor at Christ the King parish in Chicago, during which time he studied sociology at the University of Chicago, receiving a Ph.D. in 1962. His dissertation dealt with the influence of religion on the career plans of 1961 college graduates.

Combined Sociology and Faith

Sociology, an interest in Catholic education, and a ministry to Catholic youth dominated Greeley's early career and writings. From 1961 to 1968 he was a program director at the National Opinion Research Center in Chicago, and in 1973 he became the director of the Center for the Study of American Pluralism. He taught sociology at the University of Chicago from 1963 to 1972, and beginning in 1978 he taught intermittently at the University of Arizona.

Greeley's first writings included such titles as The Church and the Suburbs (1959) and Religion and Career (1963), works in which he put empirical sociology to use. At the same time, he was drawing on his ministerial work with young Catholics in books such as Strangers in the House (1961), which described the problems of Catholic teenagers. In the late 1960s he did several studies of Catholic education, concluding that the religious impact of parochial schooling seemed negligible. He was also intent on explaining the Christian faith to lay people, producing readable books such as The Jesus Myth (1971) and The Moses Myth (1971). In 1972 he published the results of a two-year study of American priests, reporting widespread dissatisfaction. Although this work had been underwritten by the American Catholic bishops, they repudiated its findings, leading Greeley to comment: "Honesty compels me to say that I believe the present leadership in the church to be morally, intellectually, and religiously bankrupt." A significant aspect of Greeley's profile after 1972 was alienation from the American Catholic bishops.

Joining his interest in sociology to a strong sense of his Irish-Catholic heritage, Greeley ventured into the area of ethnicity in 1974, studying the impact of ethnic background and lamenting the assimilation of Irish-Catholics to American Protestant models. In his assessments of American Catholic faith after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), he focused on the 1968 encyclical of Pope Paul IV that reaffirmed the ban on artificial birth control. In Greeley's view, this encyclical greatly lowered the credibility of church leaders in the eyes of American Catholics and accounted for a significant drop in church attendance. Another reason for the drop was Vatican II's shift from a God of law to a God of love, who might be presumed to look more to the heart than such externals as attendance at Sunday Mass.

Became a Popular Novelist

Greeley had always written for newspapers and magazines, as well as giving radio and television interviews, but he advanced the popular thrust of his work in 1979 with reports on the elections of Popes John Paul I and John Paul II, for which he traveled to Rome. In 1981 he launched what proved to be a hugely successful career as a novelist with The Cardinal Sins, a potboiler depicting the sordid, all-too-human inside of clerical and upper-class Chicago Catholic culture. After that beginning he poured forth a stream of best-sellers (Thy Brother's Wife [1982], Ascent into Hell [1984], Virgin and Martyr [1985], The Final Planet [1987], and Angel Fire [1988]). From the handsome royalties these novels earned, Greeley endowed a chair at the University of Chicago Divinity School in memory of his parents.

Few literary critics spoke well of Greeley's novels, but obviously they struck a chord in the lay population. Readers of newspapers, secular and Catholic, were familiar with Greeley's syndicated columns and occasional pieces, which were remarkable for their cantankerous ability to spotlight troubling issues (for example, homosexuality among the Catholic clergy). Greeley had a great gift for clear prose and a courageous desire to speak frankly about the actual experience of faith, both personal and social. He continued to draw on data of the National Opinion Research Institute to illuminate religious, ethnic, educational, and other trends in American culture. His own theological positions were moderate to slightly conservative, but he championed a reworking of the Church's attitudes toward sexuality and made a strong case for the importance of the religious imagination (so as to express theology through stories). Steadily he urged the Church to attend to the findings of empirical social science, so as to make its ministry more realistic and credible. His feuds with the late Cardinal Cody, and with many other personages with whom he disagreed, enlivened church life in Chicago and intrigued readers of his columns.

Living independently, and wealthy because of his royalties, Andrew Greeley went his own way, making a unique contribution to American church life. His books number over 100, and he was one of the most quoted American Catholic priests, appearing in TV Guide and on numerous talk shows. In fact, few American Catholics have had a greater popular impact. Slowly, serious students of current American Catholic culture are beginning to account Greeley an influence worthy of scholarly investigation.

Further Reading

So prolific is author Andrew Greeley that the best policy would be to sample the several different genres in which he wrote: sociological studies of American religion, popular presentations of Catholic faith, studies of ethnicity, and novels. A good specimen of the first genre might be Communal Catholics (1976), Religion: A Secular Theory (1982), or The Catholic Myth (1990). Among his popular presentations of Catholic faith, The Jesus Myth (1971) remains a high point. His works on ethnicity are illumined by his 1974 book Ethnicity. His novels have improved from the 1981 The Cardinal Sins, so the more recent works are more impressive. As an example of the critical attention that Greeley is beginning to receive, see Ingrid Shaefer, editor Andrew Greeley's World (1989). □

GREELEY, ANDREW MORAN 1928-

Roman catholic priest; sociologist;author

Education and Writings

Andrew Moran Greeley was born in Chicago and educated in Catholic schools and Mundelein College. He was ordained in 1954 and assigned to a prosperous suburban Chicago parish, an experience that became the basis for his The Church and the Suburbs (1959). He was permitted to do graduate work at the University of Chicago and completed his Ph.D. in 1961, a study that led to The Education of American Catholics (1966), which attracted attention with evidence that American Catholics were becoming the best educated of American ethnic groups.

Sociological Studies

After his degree Greeley affiliated with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), focusing on analyzing the social implications of religion and ethnicity. In 1965 he was released from parish duties and permitted to devote himself to academic and scholarly work. In 1970 the Ford Foundation funded the Center for the Study of American Pluralism, associated with the NORC, which became the base of his scholarly work in sociology.

Theories Attract Attention

Greeley's work attracted increasing attention in the 1970s, particularly his study of Catholic Schools in a Declining Church (1976), which asserted that parochial education was one of the most effective means of developing loyalty to the church, this at a time when bishops were slowing their commitment to building more schools. More sensational was the revelation in his research that the reason for the decline in recent Catholic commitment was not bewilderment by the rush of change that followed the Second VaticanCouncil but the refusal of the American laity to accept the church's teachings of sexuality and birth control, as stated in Humanae Vita (1968). His studies said that only 15 percent of American Catholics accepted the rule against artificial birth control, a sharp drop for the more than half who accepted the church's teachings in this area in 1963. Paralleling this drop in acceptance of teachings on sexuality was a drop in the acceptance of papal authority and a decline in Catholic practices. The impact of Humanae Vita was also evident in the clergy, where 80 percent of the priests would not enforce the strictures against birth control. Time magazine paid particular notice to his work. These conclusions were confirmed in American Catholics: A Social Portrait (1977).

Controversial Claims

Greeley then turned his attention to the use and effect of symbols in religion, paying attention to the Virgin in a study, The Mary Myth: On the Femininity of God (1977). That with his reports on church politics of the election of Pope John Paul II made him one of the most famous and controversial Catholic writers. In 1990 he took a professorship at the University of Arizona, where he would spend half his years teaching and in parish work.

Popular Fiction

At the end of the 1970s Greeley turned to expressing his views in poetry and fiction. He published two modestly successful novels before the end of the decade and before reaching the vast readership he attained with his fiction in the 1980s, when novels like Cardinal Sins (1981) sold millions of copies and attracted a band of devoted readers and admirers. Greeley felt that his fiction was a more effective way to communicate his ideas than the scholarly works he had written earlier and turned his efforts increasingly to more creative forms of writing.

Sources:

Andrew M. Greeley, Confessions of a Parish Priest: An Autobiography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986);

Ingrid H. Shafer, Eros and the Womanliness of God: Andrew Greeley's Romances of Renewal (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1991).