Born Gerard T. Ennis on August 24, 1910 in the Hyde Park section of Scranton, Pennsylvania, he was the son of Eugene and Elizabeth McCormack. He attended St. Patrick’s Parish. He entered the Passionist novitiate and took his vows on August 15, 1930. He received the name Claude. Before ordination on May 22, 1937 in Scranton, he studied at the Passionist monasteries Brighton, Massachusetts, Baltimore, Maryland, and Union City, New Jersey. Father Ennis served a military chaplain at Spence Army Air Field in Georgia and then in the Pacific Theater in Burma and India with the Engineer Aviation Battalion. He left the military as a Major. He returned to be a parish missionary and confessor, but the war had taken a toll on his health. He was a Director of Students in Jamaica, New York. He was Vicar of St. Mary’s Monastery, Dunkirk, New York. In 1955 he was assigned to St. Ann’s Monastery, Scranton. In 1962 he suffered a heart attack. He died at Veterans Hospital in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1967.
Birth Date:
August 24, 1910
Profession Date:
August 15, 1930
Ordination Date:
May 22, 1937
Death Date:
November 23, 1967
Religious Name:
Claude of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Ennis