Obituaries Bruce Kent Nuclear Weapons

To see Monsignor Kent exorcise the base of the Polaris nuclear submarine in Faslane on the west coast of Scotland or to lead protests in Greenham Common, Berkshire, against the development of US cruise missiles or to allow bailiffs to seize the few instead of paying with the Nuclear Weapons Taxes was a strong reminder that the Christian gospel is social and radical. One of the ironies of the savage campaign against Kent by self-proclaimed God-fearing Conservative MPs was MI5 and the Vatican’s diplomatic representative in Britain, Bruno Heim – who in 1983 called him a “useful idiot” who them – was that the subject of their rage was such a gentle man. Kent was not harsh and even when he was treated and abused by his critics he was soothing. He followed the example of Christ, often mentioned but in practice it was very hard to turn the other cheek. Bruce Kent is protesting outside the Department of Defense against the war in Iraq. Photo: Martin Argles / The Guardian This did not mean, however, that he was not passionate about his beliefs or effective in exposing them. He was probably lucky with his timing. When he took over as secretary general of the CND in the early 1980s, he was almost dying, with only 3,000 paid members. Within months, the government’s twin announcements of a 5 5 billion plan to replace Polaris with Trident and plans to host Cruise in Greenham revived the organization. By November, it was reaching 80,000 supporters in Trafalgar Square, and the following year, 250,000 gathered in Hyde Park. A gifted speaker, with natural powers, Kent was equally capable as a manager and a regular, successfully thwarting the Trotskyists’ attempts to infiltrate the various CND governing councils and avoiding the divisions that had crippled the organization during its first incarnation. ’50. One of the most striking compliments to Kent came in December 1982 from Denis Healey, the deputy Labor leader and no follower of CND politicians. He had, healey said, “achieved the most dramatic policy victory of a subject in recorded history.” The universal hierarchy watched all this from the sidelines with growing concern and not a little envy. Cardinal Basil Hume, who had given Kent permission to take on his role in the CND, gave him a big rope and defended him against his accusers. But Hume, for all his solitude, had great respect for the men in the Department of Defense uniform, and Kent was concerned about the situation. With the 1987 general election approaching and the nuclear issue once again high on the agenda, Kent felt he had no choice but to leave the priesthood if he were to continue to speak openly about the threat to the world. Hume made the right noises, but he accepted it very easily for some. For Kent, February 11, the day of his retirement – he would never take advantage of the global resignation, although it was clear he would not return – was one of the worst in his life. He wept as he announced the news to those in the church who had supported him and many wept with him. “I knew,” he later wrote, “that I no longer fit into the priesthood as others saw it.” Bruce was born in London into the cozy world of Hampstead Garden Suburb, the son of Molly (Marion) and Kenneth Kent, who ran the UK branch of American construction company Armstrong Cork. At the parish dances, Bruce went out with a young Antonia Pakenham, later Fraser, whose parents belonged to the Labor Party group living in the area. The Kents, however, were more conservative in their political leanings. Bruce’s parents were Canadians and for three years during World War II, he and his brother and sister went back to Canada with their mother. She was a devout Catholic, and on their return Bruce went to Stonyhurst College in Lancashire, the Jesuit school that competed with Amblefort to become a Catholic. “It took me another 20 years,” he said, “at least to realize how effectively I had worked on the life and values ​​of the English establishment.” And his life afterwards was initially conformist. He served in the army for two years and then went to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he earned a law degree in 1956. However, he had long been interested in the priesthood and, overcoming opposition from his non-Catholic father, was ordained in 1958. There again, he was not a rocker. and after a few years in parish work he became in 1963 chief secretary of Cardinal John Heenan, Hume’s predecessor as universal leader. His duties were many and varied, he handed out rosaries to a maid on 10 Downing Street, attended Winston Churchill’s state funeral with his boss, and faced violent changes in the mood of the unpredictable and selfish. Although after two years their relationship became strained, especially due to Kent’s growing radicalism sparked by the Vatican’s intransigence over artificial birth control, Heenan still had enough faith in his assistant to name him a Catholic priest. at the University of London. During his time in office (1966-74), Kent became an adult. Without special order he discovered ecumenism, abandoned all ideas that the priest was responsible and the laity followed him humbly, was forced by questions from students to explore the church’s traditional dislike for sex and became increasingly involved in the struggle for a better world. This began shortly after his ordination, when he agreed to be a priest at Pax Christi, the small British affiliate of the International Catholic Peace Movement, but flourished during his time at the University of London. He was involved with the CND, the Campaign against the Arms Trade and War on Want. He traveled to Biafra and India and saw firsthand the damage caused by wars and Western weapons there. And he began to criticize his own church for standing with its head in the sand. His letter to the Times in October 1967, in which he attacked the Catholic naval priest for blessing Polaris’s launch, was the beginning of his national fame – and the ensuing controversy. Henan was terrified of the change in Kent and the two clashed repeatedly. Other incumbents, including senior officials in Stonyhurst or Oxford, saw him as a traitor. However, the cardinal’s death in 1975 and his replacement by the less controversial Hume affected something like a reconciliation between the Archdiocese of Westminster and its troubled priest. It was, above all, the remarkable Victor Guazzelli, one of Hume’s auxiliary bishops (or aides), who did everything he could to keep Kent in the barn, appointing him priest of the parish of St Aloysius, Euston, in 1977. but it gave him enough space to continue working in the peace movement. Like Kent, Guazelli took the lead from the 1971 Council of Bishops in Rome, which taught that the gospel “has the power to set us free, not only from sin, but also from what sin has done in our society “. When Kent took over as CND general secretary, the pressure of work meant he had to leave his parish, although he continued to live and work at St John’s in Islington. Those were intoxicating years. His face seldom appeared on television screens, forever challenging the Cold War. Bruce Kent, center, with Jonathon Porritt, left, and Jeremy Corbyn at a Walk for the Earth rally outside the US Embassy in London in 1992. Photo: Fiona Hanson / PA He argued that the Warsaw Pact countries posed little or no threat to the West, that the Soviet Union was in internal collapse and therefore unlikely to attack, and that the deterrent could never work because it implied a willingness to strike first. History, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, has shown that it is right: only with the Russian invasion of Ukraine has much thought been given to the nuclear conflict. But at that moment, Kent screamed at anyone, from Conservative Cabinet Secretary Michael Heseltine to the fanatic who sent him a (thankfully stopped) incendiary bomb. As soon as he left the priesthood, Kent continued to work for the peace movement. He had a brief Indian summer as a commentator during the Gulf War in 1990, but his profile plummeted as the nuclear argument faded from the top of the political agenda. He was a Labor candidate in Oxford West and Abingdon in 1992, but was already considered far left by many in the Labor class. Professionally, it was a sin that his tremendous energy and intellect were never subsequently summoned by a catholic church that stubbornly reluctant to leave the past behind. However, if his last years were quieter than before, he was also much happier. In 1988, 14 months after retiring as a priest, he married Valeri Flesati. Through her work with Pax Christie, they had known each other for several years, but they both found it difficult to point out that it had nothing to do with turning his back on the sacred commandments. Indeed, he did not even know that he was actively considering such a move. Because he continued to consider himself a priest and never applied to Rome for an inheritance, the couple could not marry in the church, but nevertheless it was a very blessed union, built on a common commitment …