I have just learned of the death of Fr Julien Bacon at the age of 95 years. He was born in Beuvry (Pas-de-Calais) and had been Prior General of Opus Sacerdotale, an association of French priests founded in 1964. He was ordained in 1945 in the Diocese of Arras.

Most of his priestly career was involved in school teaching, but also helping out in parish work. In later life, through Opus Sacerdotale, he taught moral and pastoral theology at the seminary of Gricigliano, and it was there that I got to know him in the early 1990’s.

He was a gentle kind of priest, very much of the old school but completely in the lines of the post-war pastoral movement. That did not always endear him with the more reactionary elements of our seminary. He continued to help out in parishes around Beuvry until the end of his life.