William Bassett was born on December 18, 1932. He was eventually ordained a priest for the Catholic Diocese of Peoria. Bassett received his A.B. in 1955, his M.A. in 1957, and his S.T.L. degree in 1959 from St. Mary of the Lake College. At the third and fourth sessions of the Second Vatican Council, Basset served served as facilitator for Senior Archbishops in the Basilica under Council Secretariat, Archbishop Pericle Felici. Then, he received his J.C.D. from the Gregorian University, in Rome in 1965. After Vatican II, he was retained as a faculty member of Catholic University's School of Canon Law, 1967-1973. Bassett also obtained his J.D. from the Catholic University of America in 1972, and resigned from Catholic University in May, 1973. Bassett married Jacqueline M. Krueger on June 23, 1973, and together they went to Munich, Germany, to do research at the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Bassett then began teaching at the University of San Francisco in August 1974 and retired in June, 2008. He has written numerous books on family law, legal history, and ecclesiastical law, and has served as the editor of The Jurist and Concilium. His book "Religious Organizations and the Law" was supported by a major grant from the Lilly Foundation. In recent years, he served on the Committee for Religious Freedom of the California Catholic Conference. He is also a member of the California Bar Association, Bar Association of the District of Columbia, Selden Society, American Society for Legal History, and the Canon Law Society of America. Bassett is currently working on a book on institutional cultures in the Catholic Church.
Bassett was facilitator for Senior Archbishops at the third and fourth sessions of the Council, and this collection contains three bound volumes from his time at the Council, as well as a book that he wrote concerning the appointment of bishops.
The William Bassett Collection consists of 1 series:
None
At the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives:
This record series is indexed under the following controlled access subject terms.
Gift of the Rev. Dr. William Bassett, School of Canon Law on May 26, 1971.
Processing completed in January 2012 by Vanessa Taylor, with assistance from William Bassett. EAD markup completed in January 2012 by Vanessa Taylor.
This series contains three bound volumes of Second Vatican Council material, and one book edited by Bassett.
Bound collection in English
Bound collection in Latin
Bound collection in Latin
Book in English