In Memoriam
Fr Michael Prior, C.M.
The Justice & Peace Group of the parish of Sacred Heart & Mary
Immaculate, Mill Hill, add the enclosed permanent links to our web page in
memory of and as part of our tribute to the life and work of the late Fr
Michael Prior CM.
Over the next few weeks and months there will be many tributes paid to Fr
Michael. They will be more personal, maybe more academic than we can manage
here. But our tribute is to a man whose example meant that a few
parishioners in a parish somewhere in a corner of London were encouraged to
do something to make a difference. We simply admired his work, followed his
endeavours, and read his books and articles with some awe, a little envious
of his astonishing capabilities.
The Very Reverend Michael Prior, C.M., BSc, BD, LSS, PhD – Priest,
Academic, Intellectual, Biblical Scholar, Human Rights Activist, Author and
Lecturer died suddenly at the home of the Vincentian Community in Isleworth.
His death was announced on Saturday 24th July 2004. The loss of Fr Michael
is shocking and tragic not only for his family, his confreres, friends,
colleagues, and students, but also for all those who work for Justice and
Peace and for those who live in oppression and fear. When our little Justice
group began here in Mill Hill in 2003, we were inspired to start our work by
those, like Fr Michael, examples of the Vincentian tradition lived out
fearlessly in the harsh reality of the modern world.
His friend and colleague Nigel Parry wrote about him on hearing of his
death “Father Michael Prior worked tirelessly for over twenty years of his
life to expose the racism, false favouritism, deception, and blatantly
“unjesuslike” core assumptions of the Theology of Christian Zionism”.
It is perhaps an over used expression today to describe someone as a
“colossus” but Fr Michael can only be described in those terms – as a
colossus in his field. He brought his formidable intellectual powers to the
work of speaking out for the poor and oppressed particularly in the Holy
Land. He tried to reach across the boundaries of all faiths to find justice,
truth and peace for all. This is most clearly seen in his co-founding of the
ecumenical trust “Living Stones”. He had an unshakeable conviction that his
God was a God of love for all regardless of race, colour or creed. He called
it his moral imperative.
Burying himself in the corridors of academia was not his style, although
he was as at home in the lecture theatre as he was walking a peace march
through the closed military zone on the outskirts of Ramallah. While
berating the Israelis for human rights abuses of the Palestinian people, he
was also fearless in confronting those in his own Church on their views and
questioning their responses. He wrote,
“The attempts of the fathers of the Church to eliminate the scandal
caused by particular texts of the bible do little for me…The Catholic
Church deals with the embarrassment of having divinely mandated ethnic
cleansing in the bible narrative by either excluding it altogether from
public use, or excising the most offensive verses.”
He could be outraged when many of those in his own Church lacked his
courage and determination to speak out against injustice.
In 2002, Holy Cross College in Massachusetts withdrew an invitation to Fr
Michael to give a lecture in the College while he was on an extensive
lecture tour of the USA. They were the only College to do so in a tour that
saw Fr Michael lecture at 15 academic or religious institutions across
America including Harvard. The subject of his lecture was to be “The
Christian Churches, Zionism and the State of Israel”. In a supremely
cowardly act the College withdrew his invitation to “save Holy Cross some
further unnecessary division”. Fr Michael was told that most of the Jewish
faculty in the college were among the strongest supporters of the college
and it’s Jesuit mission. They were worried about outside media attention. He
wrote to the President of the College reminding him of the words of his
Jesuit confreres and the founder St Ignatius:
“What have I done, what am I doing, what will I do for Christ
crucified…What have I done, what am I doing for the people on the cross
and what will uncrucify them, and have them raised? It is such sentiments
that motivate me in my pursuit of truth and justice, in a presumed
atmosphere of academic and ecclesiastical freedom.”
One of his constant themes was to question the motivation of Christian
pilgrims to the Holy Land who view all the religious sights, but fail to
notice or act on the suffering of the people who live there. In a March 2003
interview with The Witness he said,
“How, I constantly ask myself, are such people so unconcerned about
others being kicked out of their homes, children being shot, people
struggling for survival against very oppressive forces of occupation?
Instead of trying to give food to the hungry and sight to the blind, as
Jesus exhorted, these people support institutions that make seeing people
blind, put free people in prison and make the poor poorer.”
But Fr Michael was not just a passionate speaker on human rights; he was
first and foremost a priest. He was a man who offered his spirituality, his
support and his humour to all; his students, his colleagues and his
confreres. This aspect of his ministry was revealed to his fellow marchers
in 1991. After his formal arrest on an international peace march in Ramallah,
he was told by a police officer in a jail in Jericho that he had a right to
one phone call. Fr Michael immediately told him that he wished to speak to
the Pope. The hapless policeman replied that his “one phone call” could not
be an international one! Fr Michael describes how he was thinking about what
his college principal would feel reading the news “sorry I cannot be there
in time for class – am in prison in the Holy Land”. But underneath all this
humour was his concern for his fellow marchers, his determination that the
group he was accompanying be fed. He was polite but firm under interrogation
and refused to sign a “statement of incrimination”. I suspect when he left,
the police and the Israeli soldiers must have been mightily relieved to “be
rid of this turbulent priest”!
Nigel Parry writes of him in his memorial tribute for The Electronic
Intifada “His cheery, cheeky demeanour and his unassuming view of his
widely respected religious titles made him one of the most approachable
religious leaders I have met. Michael will be missed by many. His
contributions to the understanding of the Christian Church and refusal to
allow Palestinian Christians to be the invisible children of a lesser God
will be remembered. The world is a little bit darker with his passing”.
We add these links, one of which is an article written by Fr Michael,
published in December 2002 in Americans for Middle East Understanding.
We chose this article, as it is a very personal piece where he reflects on
his life and some of his work. We hope that this permanent reminder of his
work on our site will inspire others as it continues to inspire us in our
work for Justice and Peace. We hope that others will seek out his books and
articles and strive to continue his work in his spirit, with passion,
principle, some humour and ultimately in the love of God.
In Ireland they have a saying that they use when somebody truly
remarkable is taken from them. They say (translated from Irish) “We will
never see his like again”. This certainly applies to Fr Michael. Mass for
the repose of his soul was held at St Mary’s College, Strawberry Hill,
London on Friday 30th July and he was buried in Cork, Ireland, following
Requiem Mass on Saturday 31st July 2004. Our prayers are with his family,
community and friends. I have chosen to end this tribute with some words
from Michael Dwinell. I think they best encapsulate the conviction and faith
that was at the centre of the fearless, extraordinary and loving priesthood
of Fr Michael Prior CM.
“Priest is called to stand at the crossing, the nexus, the
intersection of incompatible polarities, and remain exactly there in the
ripping tension, that witness can be made to the all-encompassing oneness
of the Divine. Priest surrenders easy solutions and comforting stability
to proclaim that new and resurrected life is found at the crossroads, in
the midst of the agony and tension of the irreconcilable”
M. H. Heffernan
Justice & Peace Group
Parish of Sacred Heart & Mary Immaculate
Mill Hill
London
The Links
(These links will open in a new window)
