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Mitch Finley

American author

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ6880865
Source-derived summary

Mitch Finley (born December 17, 1945) is an American author who writes on religious and Catholic subjects.

Finley has written over 30 books and has won 11 Catholic Press Awards, along with an Excellence in Writing Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

Biography

Finley was born in 1945 in La Grande, Oregon. In 1964, he graduated from DeSales Catholic High School in Walla Walla, Washington. After graduation, Finley enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He received an honorable discharge in 1968 as a petty officer second class. Finley says that he "put in four years in the Navy without serving even one day aboard ship; it was all shore duty."

After the Navy, Finley entered the Brothers of Holy Cross three-month candidacy program, then located at Saint. Francis High School in Mountain View, California, During this time, Finley also attended Santa Clara University as an English major. In January 1969, Flnley completed the Holy Cross Brothers' one-year novitiate in Valatie, New York. The community then sent him to St.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Mitch Finley” is american author. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mitch, Finley and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1945, 1964, 1968, 1969—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1945-12-17. For this dossier, Mitch, Finley and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american author” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6880865. VIAF identifies the subject as 115444983. The Library of Congress control number is n84006918. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945, 1964, 1968 and 1969.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Mitch Finley”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Mitch Finley primary sources, Mitch Finley archive and Mitch research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Mitch Finley”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Mitch Finley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.