Robert L. Bireley (July 26, 1933 – March 14, 2018) was an American Jesuit historian of Counter-Reformation

Central Europe Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the a ...

Life

Bireley was born in

Evanston, Illinois Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, ...

, on July 26, 1933.In Memoriam: Fr. Robert L. Bireley, SJ
Jesuits USA Midwest Province He joined the Jesuits in 1951, making his final vows in 1974. He was ordained a priest in Germany in 1964. He took degrees in Latin and History from Loyola University Chicago, in Philosophy from West Baden College in Indiana, and in Theology from

Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology (German: ''Philosophisch-Theologische Hochschule Sankt Georgen'') is a higher education Jesuit college in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The school offers a 10-semester Magister in Catholic Th ...

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

. In 1972 he completed a doctorate in History at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. He taught at Loyola University Chicago for 45 years. Bireley received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1982. He served as president of the

American Catholic Historical Association The American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA) was founded by Peter Guilday in Cleveland, Ohio, in December 1919 as a national society to bring together scholars interested in the history of the Roman Catholic Church or in Catholic aspects o ...

(2008) and on the editorial boards of the ''

Catholic Historical Review ''The Catholic Historical Review'' (CHR) is the official organ of the American Catholic Historical Association. It was established at The Catholic University of America in 1915 by Thomas Joseph Shahan and Peter Guilday and is published quarterly by ...

'' (1979–85) and ''

Renaissance Quarterly The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

'' (2000-3).Emeritus Faculty: Bireley, Robert
Loyola University of Chicago Department of History. He died on March 14, 2018, in

Wauwatosa, Wisconsin Wauwatosa (; known informally as Tosa; originally Wau-wau-too-sa or Hart's Mill) is a city in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 48,387 at the 2020 census. Wauwatosa is located immediately west of Milwaukee, and is a p ...

, aged 84.

Works

*''Politics and Religion in the Age of the Counterreformation: Emperor Ferdinand II, William Lamormaini, SJ, and the Formation of Imperial Policy'' (University of North Carolina Press, 1981) *''The Counter-Reformation Prince'' (University of North Carolina Press, 1990) *''The Refashioning of Catholicism, 1450–1700'' (Macmillan, 1999) *''The Jesuits and the Thirty Years War'' (Cambridge, 2003) *''Ferdinand II: Counter-Reformation Emperor, 1578-1637'' (Cambridge, 2014)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bireley, Robert 1933 births 2018 deaths 20th-century American Jesuits 21st-century American Jesuits Loyola University Chicago alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Loyola University Chicago faculty American historians American expatriates in West Germany People from Evanston, Illinois