But, most important, on December 8th, 1965, Vatican Council II was to come to an end, the convocation which had brought back to the center of Church life the priestly laity. Once again the idea had risen to the fore that the laity do not belong to the Church, but are the Church. IT was in this spirit, with renewed emphasis on the building of the Body of Christ, on the participation of the laity and the acceptance of all people in Christ, that Father Ellis took up his arduous task.
A RECORD OF CONCERN
In his previous work with the deaf and the blind, Father Ellis had proved himself a warm shepherd to his flock, bringing great practical sense as well as affection to bear on their special problems.
Father Ellis was born in Detroit on December 9th, 1922, of Joseph and Rose Ellis who had immigrated from Lebanon. He graduated from Annunciation High School in 1941 and attended Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit and Mount St. Mary Seminary in Norwood, Ohio.
He was ordained on May 22nd, 1948, by the late Edward Cardinal Mooney. He served as assistant at St. Henry Church in Lincoln Park until 1952, and as the first non-Polish priest at the Polish-American Church of Thomas the Apostle in Detroit.
In September of 1965, he was appointed as Assistant Director of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. In this post he became moderator for The Detroit Association of the Catholic Deaf, bending is will to the first discouraging task of learning to "sign," until those who later saw him thought he had done it all his life. He soon began the Sunday morning televised Mass and the radio program " The Church Today." Under his direction, The Detroit Conference of Catholic Blind was also begun in 1958. Prior to this, at the direction of Cardinal Mooney, he began the Catholic Day School program for retarded children, and, shortly afterwards, the catechetical program for retarded children. In 1960, he began the sign language class at St. John Seminary, graduates of which now work in various dioceses in Michigan.
Continued
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