Bruce Kent
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Bruce Kent (22 June 1929 – 8 June 2022) was an English Catholic former priest who became a political activist in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), holding various leadership positions in the organisation.
Early life
Born on 22 June 1929 in Blackheath, Southeast London,<ref name="Times"/><ref name="Guardian-Obit" /> Kent was the son of Molly (Marion) and Kenneth Kent.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> He was educated in Canada before attending Stonyhurst College. He served as an officer in the Royal Tank Regiment from 1947 to 1949, and read Jurisprudence at Brasenose College, Oxford, from 1949 to 1952. In 1952, he began a six-year course studying for the priesthood at St Edmund's seminary in Ware, Hertfordshire.<ref name="Times"/>
Priesthood
In 1958, Kent was ordained as a Catholic priest for the Diocese of Westminster and between 1958 and 1987 served in several London parishes, latterly becoming secretary to Cardinal John Heenan. Between 1966 and 1974, he was the Catholic chaplain to the University of London.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was chairman of the charity War on Want from 1974 to 1976.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 1987, Kent retired from the priesthood.<ref name="Guardian-Obit">Template:Cite news</ref><ref>ARC Patrons Biographies Arms Reduction Coalition</ref> Contrary to some reports, he claimed to have never requested laicization and to have remained a priest.<ref name=":0" /> However, his canonically illicit marriage 14 months after his retirement incurred automatic laicization.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 1992, he was a candidate for the Labour Party in the constituency of Oxford West and Abingdon, where he came third. Had he been elected, he would at the time have been prevented, as an ordained priest, from taking his seat in the House of Commons.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Sitting Member of Parliament and Conservative minister John Patten, also a Catholic, retained his seat.<ref>English Counties United Kingdom Election Results 1983–97</ref>
Activism
In 1960, Kent joined the Christian Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> a specialist section of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was CND's general secretary from 1980 to 1985 and its chair from 1987 to 1990, and later held the honorary title of vice-president.<ref>Veteran anti-nuclear campaigner gives city peace talk Template:Webarchive The Yorkshire Post, 1 July 2009</ref> In the 1980s, he led resistance to the deployment of the BGM-109G Ground Launched Cruise Missile at RAF Greenham Common.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
From 1985 to 1992, Kent succeeded Seán MacBride as president of the International Peace Bureau.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1997, he took part in the Musa Anter peace train to Diyarbakır, which aimed for a solution for the Kurdish-Turkish conflict.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In a ceremony held on 19 October 2019, Kent was honoured with its MacBride Peace Prize.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Kent was a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.<ref name="PSC">Template:Cite web</ref>
In April 2021, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby awarded the Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism jointly to Kent and to his wife Valerie Flessati "for exceptional, tireless and lifelong dedication to the Christian ecumenical search for peace, both individually and together."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Among his heroes was Franz Jägerstätter, the Austrian farmer who was executed in 1943 for refusing to fight in Hitler's army. As recently as 15 May 2022, Kent took part in the annual ceremony in Tavistock Square, London, to honour conscientious objectors throughout the world.<ref name="ICN">Template:Cite web</ref>
Personal life and death
Kent married Valerie Flessati on 4 July 1988 and lived in Harringay, North London.<ref name="Times">Template:Cite web</ref>
Kent died on 8 June 2022, at home, at the age of 92.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> At the time of his death he was a vice-president of CND, a vice-president of Pax Christi, and emeritus president of the Movement for the Abolition of War.<ref name="ICN"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
See also
References
External links
- Official website
- Images of Kent at the National Portrait Gallery
- Interview about CND for the WGBH series "War and Peace in the Nuclear Age"
- "My Favourite Books", Socialist Review, Issue 191, 1995
- Articles written by Kent in the New Statesman
- "The myths of the arms trade", The Tablet
- "The Abolition of War: The Politics of Realistic Utopianism", Disarmament Diplomacy
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- 1929 births
- 2022 deaths
- 20th-century British Army personnel
- 20th-century British Roman Catholic priests
- Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford
- British anti–nuclear weapons activists
- Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament activists
- Labour Party (UK) parliamentary candidates
- Laicized Roman Catholic priests
- Military personnel from the London Borough of Haringey
- Military personnel from the London Borough of Lewisham
- Military personnel from the Royal Borough of Greenwich
- People educated at Stonyhurst College
- People from Blackheath, London
- People from Harringay
- Royal Tank Regiment officers