The Catholic peace campaigners Bruce Kent and Valerie Flessati have received a Lambeth Award from the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Former CND chairman and Catholic peace campaigner Bruce Kent received the Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism jointly with his wife Dr Valerie Flessati for “exceptional, tireless and lifelong dedication to the Christian ecumenical search for peace, both individually and together”.
The couple are both lifelong figures within the peace movement, playing leading roles in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Catholic organisation Pax Christi. In the course of their work they tirelessly campaigned for the cause of worldwide peace in general, and against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in particular, cooperating across religious and denominational divides in the process.
Bruce Kent was for some time a contentious figure, and left the priesthood due to tensions arising from his open criticisms of the Thatcher government in the 1980s. He refused to abandon the peace movement that he saw as central to his ministry. He married fellow campaigner Dr Valerie Flessati in 1988, and the couple have shared their work and lives ever since.
The other recipient of the Lambeth Cross for Ecumenism was Jewish campaigner Elizabeth Harris-Sawczenko, former director of the Council of Christians and Jews, an interfaith organisation that campaigns on modern slavery, religious anti-Semitism, and the Israel-Palestine issue.
Also honoured with a Lambeth Award was Isaac Borquaye, the rapper better known as Guvna B, “for being an outstanding, faithful and vibrant witness to Jesus Christ using his gifts and the medium of recording, performance and video to proclaim the good news”. Guvna B is one of the acclaimed black Christian recording artists in the UK, winning two MOBO (Music of Black Origin) awards in the gospel music category.
Born to Ghanaian parents on a London council estate, the 31-year-old rapper is also the author of two partly autobiographical books where he challenges the assumptions of both secular culture and ingrained stereotypes about race and masculinity.
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