Father Terry Tastard MA, PhD

Father Terry Tastard

Department of Theology and Religion
Catholic priest; tutor in seminary; writer
Honorary Fellow, Edward Cadbury Centre

Contact details

I understand Christian ministry to be inseparable from communication. As a priest and as a writer I try to make the past speak to the present.

Qualifications

  • BA (Rhodes)
  • BD AKC (London)
  • MPhil  (Birmingham)
  • PhD (Hertfordshire)

Biography

At different stages of my life I have been a journalist, university teacher and (since 1993) Catholic priest. I was Research Associate of the Von Hügel Institute, St Edmund’s College, 2007-2010 and previously taught in the Dept of History and Philosophy of Religion at King’s College London and at the Birkbeck Centre for Extra-Mural Studies. My PhD was on ‘The response of the English churches to the Nazi Persecution of the Jews, 1933-1945.’

As a parish priest I was always concerned to build links between church and community, using initiatives such as starting a literary festival and opening a food bank with support from across the board.

Research

I am researching a book on the religious sisters, both Catholic and  Anglican, who nursed in the Crimean War in association with Florence Nightingale.

Other activities

I am a tertiary priest of the Dominican Order.

I have links with Middle Eastern Christians, including Iraq which I visited in 2019.

Publications

Books:

  • Ronald Knox and English Catholicism (2009),
  • The Way to Life:  Stations of the Resurrection (2005),
  • The Spark in the Soul:  Spirituality and Social Justice (1989) published 1990 in USA as The Spark in the Soul:Four Mystics on Justice ;
  • ‘Genocide, Ethnocide and the Situation of Middle East Christians Today’ in Living Stones Yearbook 2013 ;
  • ‘Theology and Spirituality in the 19th & 20th in The Companion Encyclopedia of Theology

Papers read at conferences include, ‘The gulf between religious culture and popular culture in England today’:  Institute for the Study of Secularisation and Society, Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.

 

Broadcast talks on BBC Radio Four.