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John Tracy Ellis, R.I.P.: a well-ordered life

Commonweal, Nov 6, 1992 by George G. Higgins

Some time ago, Monsignor John Tracy Ellis--to remind me ever so gently of my own mortality-gave me, for insertion into my breviary, a Xerox copy of a prayer which he told me he had been saying every day for several months. Characteristically, he had identified the printed source of the prayer by chapter, verse, page number, date of publication, etc., as he had taught his students to do, even in routine term papers, during his long and distinguished career in the classroom at The Catholic University of America and, for a time, at the University of San Francisco. It is a prayer for a happy (and, in his case, a speedy) death. The prayer, which Saint Bede is reported to have said as he was dying, reads as follows:

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Now is the time, if it be my Maker's will, for me to be set free from this flesh and to come to him who fashioned me from nothing when as yet I was not. I have lived a long time and my merciful judge has ordered my life well. The time of my delivery is at hand for my soul longs to see Christ my king in his glory.

All of Ellis's friends knew, of course, that for several months he had been praying that, God willing, he might be permitted to die as soon as possible. He felt that the time of his delivery was at hand, and his soul longed to see Christ his king in his glory. His prayer was mercifully answered at 6:00 A.M. on Friday, October 16, when he peacefully went to the Lord. Like Saint Bede, he had lived a long life--eighty-seven years, to be exact-- and could say in all humility that his merciful judge had ordered his life well.

Ellis's entire adult life, both before and after his ordination to the priesthood in 1938, was devoted almost exclusively to the study and teaching of church history. He was the supportive mentor of numerous aspiring historians, lay and clerical, who received their professional start under his generous guidance and wise direction and, without exception, remained his devoted friends for life.

It will be appropriate, then, to say a word at the outset about Ellis's approach to history. He was guided always by what Pope Leo XIII said with reference to historians on the opening of the Vatican Archives: "The first law of history is not to dare to utter falsehood; the second, not to fear to speak the truth."

It would be frivolous, of course, to suggest that these few words--which Ellis himself helped to make familiar to all of us by dint of constant repetition--adequately summarize his contribution to American Catholicism during the past fifty-odd years. At the very least, however, they bring to mind the one quality above all others that many would undoubtedly single out as his distinctive trademark--the quality of intellectual honesty which, as Leo described it, is both a negative and a positive virtue. In short, Ellis never dared to utter falsehood and, even more to his credit, never feared to speak the truth.

It might be argued, of course, that that is the least that one could expect and demand of any historian worthy of the name and that it really tells us very little, if anything, about Ellis's distinctive contribution to American Catholicism as compared, for example, to the contribution made by his confreres in the field of church history or by his counterparts in other scholarly disciplines or pastoral occupations. The point is well taken. Yet, without making comparisons--least of all odious comparisons--I would argue that, given the ecclesiastical and cultural climate in which he had to function during the middle years of his priesthood, and given the fact that in his later years he was an outspoken and rather controversial commentator on the present state of American Catholicism and not merely a chronicier of our Catholic past, his intellectual honesty was almost sui generis and had a significant impact on the life of the church in this country.

Offhand I can think of more than a few people in high places who, thirty of forty years ago, would not have agreed with me in this regard. But, as Ellis and his professional peers are wont to remind us, time has a way of putting things in focus and perspective. Recall if you will, in this connection, the angry reaction on the part of certain ecclesiastics to Ellis's articles and speeches during the fifties on the failure of American Catholicism to encourage and to nurture intellectual excellence. The fact that his frank but reasoned treatment of this subject created such a furor, coupled with the fact that an equally frank discussion of a comparably delicate problem in 1992 would hardly cause a tipple, is one indication of how far we have come post if not propter Vatican II.

I do not mean to suggest that intellectual honesty of the kind that Ellis consistently exemplified is everywhere revered or honored in today's church. But surely things are better in this regard than they were when he first began to speak out in public on a wide range of previously unmentionable subjects or, as his critics at the time might have put it, when he first began to wash some of our dirty linen in public. If we are more sophisticated and more relaxed in this respect than we used to be, and if we have developed a certain sense of cultural maturity in the American Catholic community, much of the credit belongs to Ellis. For this reason, among many others--including his willingness to pay a certain price for his convictions--we honor his memory with gratitude.

John Tracy Ellis, R.I.P.: a well-ordered life

Commonweal, Nov 6, 1992 by George G. Higgins

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