John Bryden, who died in November at the age of 88, was a leading figure in the Newman Association during its peak years in the 1960s and served as President from 1965 to 1967.
John Bryden, who died in November at the age of 88, was a leading figure in the Newman Association during its peak years in the 1960s and served as President from 1965 to 1967. Earlier he had been President of the Sheffield University Catholic Society and then President of the Union of Catholic Students. He was also involved in Student Pax Romana, and indeed during a spell in New York on a post-doctoral fellowship he was the acting representative of Pax Romana to the UN in New York in the temporary absence of the permanent representative.
He was also a lifelong supporter of Student Cross, the cross-carrying pilgrimage movement which organises walks from various starting-points to Walsingham each Easter. Older pilgrims join Easter Cross. The first Student Cross Pilgrimage set off on March 20th, 1948, to walk the 120 miles from Ely Place, in London's Holborn, to Walsingham. John's own first experience was of the Northern Leg in 1956 and later he became a member/Trustee of the Student Cross Association Committee. On retiring from a 30-year career with BP in 1990 he decided he had time to research and write a history of Student Cross and this was published by the Student Cross Association in 1998 as Behold the Wood. The movement still thrives, with twelve groups, or legs, for Easter 2022.
He joined the Newman Association in 1956 and in 1960 joined the Hull Circle before transferring to London. For the Newman Association the 1960s were exciting but troubled years. Membership surged to a peak of around 3,000 as lay Catholics looked forward to the results of the Vatican II Council which deliberated from 1962 to 1965. Elections to the Council and posts as Officers became contested for probably the first time. After being National Secretary for two years he was elected President in 1965 just as the excitement over Vatican II was reaching a peak. Quoted in this journal's 70th anniversary supplement in 2012 John Bryden remembered the anticipation. "A number of senior members of the Association, including myself, went to Rome during the Council, dined with the entire English Hierarchy in the English College and attended Mass in St Peter's with the entire Hierarchy of the Church."
Those were the peak years for the Newman. In 1968, however, after an interval, came the bitter anticlimax of Humanae Vitae, Paul VI's encyclical on birth control which was very disappointing for many Newman members. John Bryden, after two years working in South Africa, returned to a tense situation as more traditional members of the Association disagreed with liberal thinkers. He was one of the founders of the London ad hoc group of Catholic lay people which became the Catholic Renewal Movement, as in effect the Association split into two. He responded vigorously to a request for reminiscences on the 70th anniversary of the Newman in 2012, arguing that: "It was difficult for the Newman to get engaged in public controversy in Church matters, although we could discuss the issues in private, whereas the CRM could do as it saw fit." On Humanae Vitae, he said that he and other senior Newman members had a long meeting with Cardinal Heenan and "he agreed that it was entirely a matter for individual consciences".
John valued the Association for providing a secure atmosphere where people could debate issues without fear of denunciation. He later commented: "The Church must….relate its theology to science, economics, medicine and so on, which the Newman and Pax Romana have always done without the enthusiastic support of the institutional Church."
In later life John and his wife Rosemary retired to the north of Norfolk, just a few miles from Walsingham. The cross regularly carried by Easter Cross pilgrims was stored in their garage.
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