John Tracy Ellis

Who was John Tracy Ellis?

John Tracy Ellis was a Catholic Church historian, born and raised in Seneca, Illinois, USA.

Ellis was ordained a priest and received a doctorate in history from Catholic University in Washington, where he worked with Msgr. Peter Guilday to collect the central documents of the American Catholic heritage. He spent most of his career as a faculty member of the Catholic University, but he taught at the University of San Francisco between 1963 and 1976. He was a long serving executive secretary of the American Catholic Historical Association and editor of the Catholic Historical Review. Ellis is best known for his 1952 argument that American Catholic scholars have failed to measure up to European Catholic standards of scholarship and intellectual leadership.