The hymns of Father James Quinn, SJ are found in almost every contemporary English language hymnal , taken from his collections New Hymns for All Seasons and Praise for All Seasons. His publisher, Selah, described him as “one of the finest writers of hymn texts of our time”. -- this obituary published in http://www.jesuit.org.uk/ in their May/June e-newsletter
James Quinn was born in Glasgow on 21 April 1919. He was educated at St Aloysius’ College and Glasgow University, and joined the Society of Jesus in 1939. After studying at Heythrop College, Oxfordshire, he taught at St Wilfrid’s School in Preston before being ordained in 1950. He also taught at Wimbledon College in South London, and served in Sacred Heart parish, Edinburgh.
In the 1960s, Fr Quinn worked on the cause for the canonisation of St John Ogilvie. Over the 1960s and ‘70s, he was an observer at the assembly of theWorld Alliance of Reformed Churches; a consultant to the World Council of Churches’ Faith and Order conference; a member of the Scottish Religious Advisory Committee of the BBC; and a participant in various ecumenical dialogues for the British Council of Churches. Fr Quinn also served as a consultant to the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (1972-1976).
Between 1976 and 1980 he was spiritual director at the Beda College in Rome. From 1980, Fr Quinn served as Secretary on the Scottish Commission for Christian Unity, being appointed seven years later as
Episcopal Vicar for Ecumenism in the Archdiocese of Edinburgh.
Fr James Quinn SJ died on 8 April 2010 at St Joseph’s House in Edinburgh, where he had spent the past ten years.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment