Rev. Andrew Greeley: R.I.P.

Father Andrew Greeley, prolific novelist, journalist, sociologist, and outspoken Roman Catholic priest, for over five decades, died in his sleep Wednesday night at the age of 85.

According to his niece, Father Greeley had been in poor health and under 24-hour care since suffering severe head injuries in 2008 when his clothing caught on the door of a taxi as it pulled away, and he was thrown to the pavement.

Greeley wrote more than 120 books, many published by university presses, and numerous articles about Catholic theology in both sociological journals and general-interest magazines (including the Mystery Readers Journal). He also wrote op-ed pieces and syndicated columns in both religious and secular publications, but for mystery readers, he'll be remembered for his Blackie Ryan series. All in all he wrote over 50 novels, with 17 of them in the Blackie Ryan series.

According to the NYT, "His greatest readership certainly stemmed from his scores of novels, many of them rife with Vatican intrigue, straying priests and explicit sex. At least 10 of them appeared on The New York Times’s best-seller list, including his first, The Cardinal Sins (1981), a story of two Irish-American boys from Chicago’s West Side who enter the priesthood together, one of whom contrives to become the cardinal of Chicago, takes a mistress and fathers a child." Father Greeley wrote,  “Sometimes I suspect that my obituary in The New York Times will read, ‘Andrew Greeley, Priest; Wrote Steamy Novels.’ ”