Please pray for my church history professor who taught at my alma mater, Fribourg University.

Father Guy Thomas Bedouelle OP (1940-2012)

Fr Bedouelle died last 22nd May aged 71 years from a long illness at the Albertinum in Fribourg, Switzerland.

He was born in Lisieux, Normandie in 1940. After studies in law and political sciences, he joined the Dominicans in 1965. He studied at the Saulchoir in Paris, and at the theological faculties of Geneva and Fribourg. With doctorates in theology, law and history, Fr Bedouelle was professor of church history at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, from 1977 until 2007. In that latter year, he was appointed Rector of the Catholic University at Angers, and retired through ill health in 2011.

I particularly remember his fascinating and extremely well-organised lectures, not only in the core of the church history curriculum in which we were examined, but also in his cours spéciaux in nineteenth-century liberalism, the Inquisition, the conflicts between Modernists and anti-modernists at the beginning of the twentieth century and so much more. He was fair but rigorous at examinations and did not hesitate to tell me on one occasion to come back in October having done my revision properly! We are certainly hundreds of alumni to remember this great man.

Many of my present attitudes has come from the church history I learned from Fr Bedouelle, churning it over and processing it in my mind. He not only taught us but stimulated us to read from as many sources as possible to build an objective picture, and to become passionate in our study of history. History enables us to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, so goes the old slogan.

This brilliant man had a particular interest in questions concerning the relations between Church and State, questions of secularism and culture. Naturally, he had written a hefty number of books.

Rest in peace, Father.