Fr David Standley peacemaker RIP

Fr David Standley

Source: Pax Christi

Pax Christi write:

We are sad to report the death of Fr David Standley, a priest of Southwark Archdiocese and a long standing peacemaker. David died peacefully in St Peter's Residence, Vauxhall on Thursday 21 March 2024. David's ministry was rich and varied. In the 1970s he was university Chaplain in Cambridge and the University of Kent. He then served in parishes including Bexleyheath, Clapham, Battersea, and the Isle of Sheppey where he also undertook prison chaplaincy work. For many, many years he was attached to the work of L'Arche and their communities in London in particular.

Since the 1980s he has been a part of the peace work of Catholic Peace Action and Pax Christi. Those who knew David will also remember his warmth and friendship, his intellect, his critical questioning, his love of music, art and poetry which seemed to inform how he saw the world.

In the 1980s David joined Catholic Peace Action, taking part in the annual Ash Wednesday witness at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in London against nuclear war preparations.

1987 saw one of the largest Ash Wednesday gatherings when more than 300 people attended a pre-action liturgy, led by David, at St George's Cathedral, Southwark.

The next year David was among many who were arrested for marking the MoD building with blessed ash and charcoal. In his statement during his court hearing in May 1988 David said: I ask you to reaffirm in this court the great tradition of English law which protects innocent life, cherishes the earth and refuses to be subservient to passing Government policy… I am a Christian and a priest. I am charged to proclaim the law and love of God and to preach the Gospel of Christ. The case was proven against him but David and two others received an absolute discharge.

Throughout the 1990's to the present, David was a regular participant at Pax Christi's Ash Wednesday liturgies at the MoD and the annual commemoration service for Blessed Franz Jägerstätter.

One year he offered a reflection on Franz, whom he greatly admired. David appreciated the value of internationalism in peacemaking. In autumn 2015 he joined a Pax Christi pilgrimage of peace and reconciliation to Flanders to commemorate the centenary of the end of the First World War, with Pax Christi members from the UK, France, Belgium and Germany.

With the Justice and Peace Commission of Westminster Diocese, David participated in a European Pilgrimage in 2018. Its purpose was to visit some of the key places which symbolise themes of justice and peace in Europe, and to remember that the European Union was originally a peace project.

In a Pax Christi newsletter in 2022 we invited members to describe that 'lightbulb' moment for them that brought them more fully into work for peace. David wrote: "Christians always pray for peace. 'Blessed are the Peacemakers'. I was in that crowd. … As a student, and later as a priest, I was still praying for peace. Then in the 1970s I discovered Daniel Berrigan and Dorothy Day. I was excited by their radicalism and nonviolent active resistance. And by their literacy: the poetry and prose of Daniel Berrigan, the journalism and graphics of the Catholic Worker. They were alive and on fire with the Gospel. Photos of their resistance inspired me. I wanted to join in, possibly meet them. Daniel Berrigan came to a student meeting in England (I think he was 'underground' at the time)."

At one point he was asked, 'What's the point of celibacy?' Sitting on an upturned orange box he replied, 'It enables you to go to prison more easily'. YES! I have not lived up to that very consistently, but Pax Christi and Catholic Peace Action have been luminous in my life."

David, we thank you for your consistency.

Pat Gaffney is vice-president of Pax Christi

LINKS

Father David Standley - A pastor close to the smell of his sheep: www.indcatholicnews.com/news/49546

Writings of peace by Fr David: https://catholicpeaceaction.org/tag/fr-david-standley/