Robert Frederick Trisco (1929-2023) was a renowned Professor of Church History at The Catholic University of America (CU) and a longtime editor, especially for book reviews, of The Catholic Historical Review (CHR), the official publication of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA), an organization he also served as Secretary and Treasurer. An only child and Chicago native, Trisco was an avid reader, credible athlete, and lifelong devotee of opera. A dedicated scholar and devout Roman Catholic, he graduated from Quigley Preparatory Seminary in 1948 and St. Mary of the Lake Seminary at Mundelein in 1951. He then studied in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University, earning an STB in 1953, STL in 1955, and a Hist. Eccl. D. in ecclesiastical history in 1962 with his dissertation ‘The Holy See and the Nascent Church in the Middle Western United States, 1826-1950.’

Trisco was ordained in December 1954 by Bishop Martin J. O’Connor, whose papers are also at Catholic University. Following ordination, Trisco served at CU from 1959 as both professor of Church History, and part-time Archivist (until 1962), and was granted emeritus status in 2000.  According to James Garneau, former student and executor of his will. Trisco had a daily 7 am mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, effectively opening it up on a daily basis.  He also did weekly confessions there. In recognition of his contributions to both Church and Academia, he was named an honorary prelate with the title of Monsignor in 1992 and a Protonotary Apostolic Supernumerary in 2005. Among many other honors, he was named a Knight Commander of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem in 1998 and given the Centennial Award by the ACHA in 2019.

Please see the wonderful autobiographical sketch Msgr. Trisco dictated in 2018 to Nelson Minnich, his long-time colleague at CHR. There is also an excellent biographical note about Msgr. Trisco written by the late Rev. Thomas J. Shelley that leads the excellent festschrift, Building the Church in America: Studies in Honor of Monsignor Robert F. Trisco on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday (1999), part of the Melville Studies in Church History by The Catholic University Press. It was edited by his former students, Joseph C. Linck, C.O., and Raymond J. Kupke, and includes a dozen fine historical essays showcasing the work of the major figures that Trisco mentored in American Catholic Church History such as Gerald Fogarty, Philip Gleason, Joseph Chinnici, Christopher Kauffman, and Douglas Slawson. One expects that Msgr. Trisco would have been especially pleased to see Slawson’s new biography of John Burke, C.S.P., founder of the Bishops’ Conference and Catholic University alumnus.

In addition to his work educating a generation of scholars, Msgr. Trisco was also active in serving the U.S. Bishops’ Conference, today’s United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), whose records reside at Catholic University. He was a consultant to the planning committee for the Bicentennial in 1976 and recruited scholars to write essays published on a weekly basis in Catholic newspapers and magazines. Later he collected them for a volume titled Catholics in America, 1776-1976 (1976), which has endured as a major reference work. He was also instrumental in supporting American Catholic archives and record keeping, chairing for many years a committee helping oversee and assist Catholic University’s Archives, now the expanded Special Collections. I was witness to his heartfelt prayer he gave for the 1996 re-dedication of the Archives and can attest to his longstanding interest and support. This is epitomized by his 2020 bequest of a significant sum to support the processing of his substantial archival papers and the voluminous records of the ACHA. He also generously bequeathed a separate, almost monumental amount for the Mullen Library general collection as well as Rare Books, part of Special Collections, to be able to comfortably expand the acquisition of both new and venerable works of church history.

For more on Msgr. Robert F. Trisco and the ACHA, please contact Special Collections at lib-archives@cua.edu.