Seventy years to the day, on Thursday 17 July Mgr Bryan Sharp celebrated his Platinum Jubilee of Ordination. It was on this date in 1955, at the age of twenty-five, that Mgr Sharp was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Heenan at St Peter’s Church, Leeds Road, Bradford – his home parish.
The Jubilee celebration was in two parts. First, family and friends gathered in the chapel at Hinsley Hall for a Mass led by Bishop Marcus who concelebrated with fellow priests from the diocese, among them Mgr Sharp’s neighbours at Hinsley Court and colleagues from the Diocesan Marriage Tribunal.
Another concelebrant was His Eminence Cardinal Arthur Roche, who is in the diocese at present to mark his own Golden Jubilee on Saturday 19 July. The homily was preached by Mgr Paul Fisher VG, who reflected on Mgr Sharp’s long years of priestly ministry and service to the Bishops and people of the Diocese of Leeds.
After Mass the gathering adjourned to the dining room at Hinsley Hall for a celebratory lunch. During the meal Mgr Sharp himself gave a speech looking back on the early days of his priesthood and contrasting this experience with the Church of today, and the changes witnessed since the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65, during which time Mgr Sharp was a student of Canon Law in Rome.
He concluded by saying that throughout the past seventy years the most important thing for him was being a priest at the service of the Bishop, the Diocese and the people of the various parishes in which he had served, starting with St Anthony’s, Beeston in 1955 and finally at St Michael’s, Knottingley from where he retired in 2008.
Tribute to Mgr Sharp was also paid by his Romanian friend Fr Lucian Dudas, the Greek Catholic Parish Priest of Ungheni, near to the city of Targu Mures in Transylvania. For over thirty years now Mgr Sharp has been associated with this area, making several journeys to Romania to visit Fr Lucian and his parishioners, bringing them material and financial aid to help rebuild the local church and other Catholic institutions, after the fall of Communism in the country. As Fr Lucian put it, Mgr Sharp has been their ‘Guardian Angel.’
Warmest congratulations to Mgr Sharp and with a great debt of gratitude we say “Ad multos annos!”
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