John O'Malley

John William O'Malley (June 11, 1927 – September 11, 2022) was an American academic, Catholic historian, and Jesuit priest. He was a university professor at Georgetown University, housed in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies. O'Malley was a widely published expert on the religious history of Early Modern Europe, with specialities on the Council of Trent, the Second Vatican Council, and the First Vatican Council.

Personal life O'Malley was born in Tiltonsville, Ohio, in 1927. At age 18, he joined the Society of Jesus, and later earned a PhD in history from Harvard University. He died at age 95 on September 11, 2022, and is buried in the Jesuit Cemetery on the campus of Georgetown University.

Career

He was a member of the faculty at the University of Detroit from 1965 and of the Weston Jesuit School of Theology at Cambridge, Massachusetts from 1979, before becoming a professor at Georgetown University with the rank of University Professor.

Among O'Malley's best-known works are The First Jesuits (Harvard University Press, 1993), translated into 12 languages, and What Happened at Vatican II (Harvard University Press, 2008), as well as The Jesuits. A History from Ignatius to the Present (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Lanham 2014).

Awards and honors O'Malley has received numerous awards in the field of Catholic history, religious culture, and theology. He was awarded Harvard University's Graduate School of Arts Centennial Medal. He has served as president of both the Renaissance Society of America and the American Catholic Historical Association. He was elected in 1995 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 1997 to the American Philosophical Society and in 2001 to the Accademia di San Carlo, Ambrosian Library, (Milan). He received the Johannes Quasten Medal from the Catholic University of America. In 2002 he was awarded the Society of Italian Historical Studies Grand Prize and in 2005 the Renaissance Society of America. He was awarded the 2014 John Gilmary Shea Prize for Trent: What Happened at the Council.