Obituary: Mgr Michael Williams

The funeral of Mgr Michael Williams took place at St Mary’s College, Oscott on Thursday 25 February. Michael was best known to the wider Catholic public as the author of histories of the English colleges in Rome and Valladolid, and of Oscott, but was also a much loved and revered teacher of lay and clerical students, spanning over thirty years between the 1950s and 1980s.

Michael Williams was born on 10 August 1922 in Birmingham. He first visited Rome during the Holy Year of 1933, and his last visit was in 2008, for the launch of the second edition of his history of the Venerabile. In between he was an inveterate traveller in Europe, beginning a lifelong love affair with Spain immediately after the end of the Civil War in 1939.

His uncle, Archbishop Thomas Williams of Birmingham, sent him to the English College Rome which was then “in exile” at Stonyhurst. In 1946 the Venerabile returned to Rome and in 1947 he was ordained priest in Rome, completing a doctorate at the Gregorian University.

After a brief period as curate in Birmingham, Michael was appointed to the staff of the English College in Lisbon in 1953, where he began a lifetime’s engagement with scholarship and the stimulus and formation of young minds. It was this passion for exploring new ideas himself and for awakening the same passion in others that kept Michael so youthful, into very old age. It was a tribute to his impact on his students, both in Lisbon, and, from 1966, as Head of Theology at Trinity and All Saints’ College (now Leeds Trinity University), that many of them sent messages of gratitude and affection or travelled great distances to attend his funeral.

The years at Trinity and All Saints’ were probably the happiest of his life. Here he was able to pursue theology that was free from seminary confinement and that had to meet the challenge of other disciplines such as history, sociology, psychology and literature. At the same time he had to satisfy the academic standards required by Leeds University. He always felt that there was a pastoral dimension to theology and that it was truly priestly work.

His own interests expanded to include communication studies and the cinema, teaching a popular cinema course to students at the College. Bishop Agnellus Andrew made use of him as the hierarchy’s representative to the International Catholic Cinema Organisation (OCIC, now Signis) and Michael was a member of the Catholic jury at film festivals in St. Sebastian, Berlin, Venice and Figuera da Foz.

After retirement from teaching he continued to speak and write on theology, cinema and history, and to enjoy travelling. A walk around the streets of Rome with Michael was a rare treat, as he recalled historical snippets, always retold with a characteristically mischievous twinkle. He had already published histories of the English Colleges in Rome, Valladolid and Lisbon and he continued to write on various aspects of recusant history as well as being an active member of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain, the Catholic Archives Society and Catholic Record Society. Michael was a convivial priest, who shared his learning with ease, grace and always a light touch.

In November 2005 he retired to Aston Hall, Staffordshire where further ill health eventually meant a move to Nazareth House in Manchester to be cared for. He died peacefully on 1 February 2016.

Judith Champ is lecturer in Church history and academic tutor at St Mary’s College, New Oscott, near Birmingham.