by Michelle Martin’

CHICAGO (CNS) – Father Andrew Greeley, a Chicago archdiocesan priest and well-known novelist, journalist and sociologist, died late May 29 at his home in Chicago’s John Hancock Center. He was 85 years old.

Father Greeley was perhaps most widely recognized for the more than 60 novels he wrote, some considered scandalous with their portraits of hypocritical and sinful clerics. But he also wrote more than 70 works of non-fiction, often on the sociology of religion, including 2004’s Priests: A Calling in Crisis.

The title notwithstanding, the research he presented in that book found that priests are among the happiest men in the U.S. – a conclusion that mirrored his own experience.

“Andy loved being a priest, and he spoke very positively about the priesthood,” said Father Greg Sakowicz, who was pastor of St. Mary of the Woods parish in Chicago for many of the years Father Greeley filled in at weekend Masses there.

“His Masses were very personal. He would name the altar servers and have the people applaud for them,” the priest told the Catholic New World, Chicago’s archdiocesan newspaper. “Families with young children loved his Masses, because they almost had a backyard picnic flavor to them, it was so personal and warm.”

“You either loved him, or you just shook your head,” Father Sakowicz said, repeating a line often said – and acknowledged by Father Greeley – that he never had a thought that went unpublished.

Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George described Father Greeley as “an often-controversial priest, with deep convictions and a ready wit.”

“He dedicated his life to research, writing and speaking,” the cardinal said in a statement. “In his last years, the words he could still respond to were prayers, especially the Eucharist. We should keep him in our prayers now.”

A funeral Mass was celebrated June 5 with Cardinal George as main celebrant. Interment was to be private.

Born in Oak Park, Ill., Andrew Moran Greeley attended St. Angela School on the West Side, was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1954 and served as assistant pastor of Christ the King parish, 1954-63, while pursuing postgraduate studies in sociology at the University of Chicago.

In later years, he taught sociology both at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona, Tucson. Father Greeley spent part of most winters in Tucson and often gave public talks. The Arizona Daily Star newspaper reported that he was there earlier this year, according to his cousin, literary agent Andrew T. Greeley.

He maintained a relationship with the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago from 1982 until he stopped working following a 2008 accident in which his coat caught on the door of a taxicab in Rosemont, Ill., leading to a fall that caused a traumatic brain injury. While he returned home after a long hospitalization and rehabilitation – and enjoyed visitors – he no longer appeared in public.

His final book, Chicago Catholics and the Struggles Within Their Church, was published in 2010.

While not everyone liked what he said when he said it, the priest added, most eventually acknowledged that Father Greeley’s conclusions were accurate.”

Opening a lecture series at Loyola University Chicago in 2003, Father Greeley said, “Catholics remain Catholic not because of anything the bishops do, but simply because they like being Catholic – despite the best efforts of some ‘intellectuals’ to destroy ‘the sense of story and mystery’ that has always made the church the church.”

About women in the Church he added, “It also doesn’t help that so many church leaders have been downplaying the role of Mary,” said Father Greeley. “I don’t think the church as an institution or most of us who are priests respect and reverence women the way we ought to.”

Father Greeley was released from archdiocesan duties to pursue his academic interests in 1965, and he remained a priest in good standing. He published his first novel, The Magic Cup, in 1975, although his most popular books may have been The Cardinal Sins (1981) and Thy Brother’s Wife (1982).