A member of the Dominican Central Province of St. Albert the Great of Chicago, Father Edward Louis Cleary taught Political Science at Providence College between 1993 and 2011, retiring a few weeks short of his demise with the rank of Professor Emeritus.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, on August 4, 1929, to Emmet Cleary and Mary Novotny, he attended Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the Dominican Houses of Studies in River Forest, Illinois, and Dubuque, Iowa, where he earned his bachelor's degree and his licentiate in theology in 1953, followed by a master's the following year, from the Aquinas Institute of Theology.

Ordained to the priesthood by Monsignor Edward Hoban, Bishop of Cleveland, Ohio, on May 25, 1957, at St. Rose Priory in Dubuque, Iowa, he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago in 1975. Fr. Cleary's priestly assignments included San Jeronimo Seminary and St. Andrew English School in La Paz, Bolivia (1958-1962); St. Xavier College, Chicago, Illinois (1962-1966); the Dominican Mission Vicariate in La Paz, Bolivia, as Vicar Provincial (1966-1971); the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he was assistant director of the Center for Latin American Studies (1973-1976); Aquinas Institute of Theology, St. Louis, Missouri, where he taught and served as vice-president and Academic Dean (1976-1979); the Institute of Latin American Studies, Columbia University, New York, where he was a research associate at the Institute of Latin American and Iberian Studies (1980-1982); the Research Institute for the Study of Man, also in New York City, where he was a fellow (1982-1985); and the Pontifical College Josephinum, Columbus, Ohio, as director of the School of Theology Hispanic Ministries Program (1985-1993).

In 1993, Father Cleary began his career at Providence College as a faculty member in the Latin American Studies Program within the Department of Political Science, also serving as program director beginning in 1995. From the mid-1990's on, he organized and participated in many joint Providence College - U.S. Naval War College student and faculty forums. He was a faculty affiliate of the Harvard University David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies between 1999 and 2000, and a visiting scholar at the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley in 2000 and 2001. Father Cleary's writing and editing credits included numerous books and also a number of Web sites. A noted authority on Latin America, and especially the Catholic Church in Latin America, he contributed to films on Latin America and wrote numerous articles, chapters, and book reviews for scholarly and theological publications.

Father Cleary died quietly on Monday, November 21, 2011, at the Priory of St. Thomas Aquinas at Providence College, aged 82. His body was received into the chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary at the Priory of St. Thomas Aquinas at Providence College, on Sunday, November 27, at 4.00 pm., with a wake following, concluded with the Office at the Dead at 7.00.

Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated in the same chapel on Monday, November 28, at 10.00 am. At a later date, he was laid to rest with his fellow Dominican Friars in All Saints Cemetery, Des Plaines, Illinois.