A man of formidable intellectual rigour who was a force to be reckoned with in the lecture hall, and even more so afterwards in the college bar, Nicholas Lash was passionate about promoting theological reflection within the Catholic Church

A man of formidable intellectual rigour who was a force to be reckoned with in the lecture hall, and even more so afterwards in the college bar, Nicholas Lash was passionate about promoting theological reflection within the Catholic Church

I first met Nicholas Lash in Cambridge in the late-1960s, in the heady years of post-conciliar reform. Nicholas, fresh from the hectic implemention of change in a suburban parish, and wrestling with the implications of doctrinal development, was the presiding spirit of “Bar Theology”, an informal seminar meeting in the Catholic chaplaincy. Well-lubricated discussion was conducted in a haze of tobacco smoke, much of it generated by Nicholas himself, at that time a 60-a-day man.

The group itself was remarkable, including as it did Nicholas’ uncle, the monk, poet and preacher, Sebastian Moore, his Downside confrère Kevin McGuire, the priest-philosopher Peter Harris, and the learned but often prickly Jesuit New Testament scholar John Ashton. But even in such company Nicholas’ formidable intellectual rigour was exceptional, and his incisive role in those challenging evenings has remained an inspiration.

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