Robert Emmet Tracy

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Styles of Robert Emmet Tracy


Reference style	The Most Reverend
Spoken style	Your Excellency
Religious style	Monsignor
Posthumous style	none

Robert Emmet Tracy (September 14, 1909—April 4, 1980) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Bishop of Baton Rouge from 1961 to 1974.

[edit] Biography

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Robert Tracy was ordained to the priesthood on June 12, 1932, at age 22. He was Archdiocesan Director of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine from 1938 to 1946, and the Catholic chaplain of Tulane University from 1941 to 1946. Tracy then served as chaplain to the Catholic Student Center at Louisiana State University until 1959.

On March 13, 1959, he was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of Lafayette and Titular Bishop of Sergentza by Pope John XXIII. Tracy receivied his episcopal consecration on the following May 19 from Archbishop Egidio Vagnozzi, with Bishops Maurice Schexnayder and Louis Caillouet serving as co-consecrators. He was later named the first Bishop of Baton Rouge on August 10, 1961, being installed as such on the following November 8.

From 1962 to 1965, Bishop Tracy attended the Second Vatican Council; on October 24, 1963, he addressed the Council in the name of his fellow American bishops on the subject of racial equality. A year later, in 1966, he published his memoir of the Council, entitled American Bishop at the Vatican Council. He established a consultative process as an integral part of the diocesan administration, and encouraged the greater participation of the laity in governing the Church. Tracy also oversaw the construction of the Catholic Life Center and the renovation of St. Joseph Cathedral.

In 1967, he became the first American Catholic bishop to publish a financial statement for his diocese^[1]. In 1972, he established a committee for the regulation of allowing remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments, saying, "The Church has a pastoral responsibility of healing and forgiveness"^[2].

He resigned as Baton Rouge's bishop on March 21, 1974, after twelve years of service. Tracy later died at age 70.