Arthur Leen was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1926. When Arthur was high school age (about 14 years old), he entered the Catholic seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was educated through his second year of university.

From there he went to Rome in 1946; there he studied at the Pontificio Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide (the Urban Pontifical College for the Propagation of the Faith) from 1946 to 1952. In 1948, he received a bachelor’s degree from the Pontificia Universitas Urbaniana. He continued his studies from 1948 to 1952 and received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Theology. At the end of 1951, he was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in Rome, and returned to his home archdiocese in Cincinnati in 1952 after completing his studies.

After holding various positions in the Cincinnati archdiocese, including teaching Theology at the Athenaeum of Ohio, Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, Arthur returned to Rome in 1959 and obtained a Doctorate in Theology from Pontificio Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide and Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Sacred Scripture from the Pontificium Institutum Bilicum De Urbe.

Following his return to the U.S. in 1962, he taught Scripture at both the Athenaeum of Ohio in Cincinnati and Pope John XXIII National Seminary in Boston, Massachusetts.

In the mid-1960s Arthur began a new career as an employee of the U.S. Federal Government, working in the Department of Health and Human Services. He worked primarily as a policy maker and held positions in Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. He retired from the federal government in 2002 at the age of 77 after a 25-year career, and enjoyed the coastal towns of Portland, Maine; Revere, Massachusetts; and Hingham, Massachusetts. In 2019 he moved to Savannah, Georgia to be near family.