Ahead of his retirement as an active priest this month, Monsignor John Devine has received an honorary doctorate from Liverpool Hope University.

‘The icing on the cake of retirement.’ That is how Monsignor John Devine summed up events of Wednesday 23 July when he received an honorary doctorate from Liverpool Hope University.

Mgr John will officially retire as an active parish priest on the Isle of Man at the end of August and the honour he collected at Liverpool Cathedral was recognition of not just his contribution to Hope – where he served as Pro-chancellor and Chair of Governing Council from 2008-17 before continuing as Chair of the Board of Regents until 2024 – but of a broader impact across the 52 years of his priesthood.

To quote the graduation ceremony programme, here is ‘a humble leader, known for his faith, community spirit, and lifelong commitment to social justice and education.’

‘It’s a nice thing to happen and it gives me an opportunity to look at my priesthood as a whole,’ says the 77-year-old himself, who received his honorary doctorate alongside leading women’s football coach and Hope alumna Emma Hayes.

As Father Peter McGrail noted during the conferment ceremony, Mgr John grew up just down the road from the future Liverpool Hope University in Christ the King Parish. Indeed, he has an early memory of his father, also John, lifting him up to look beyond the sandstone walls on Taggart Avenue and see the original Church of England teacher training college of St Katharine’s College, the oldest building on the site today.

‘We used to walk along Taggart Avenue on the way to Calderstones Park on a Sunday afternoon. I remember my dad picking me up on his shoulders and seeing those distinctive dormer windows of St Katharine’s.’

Hence he knows the history of the place as well as anyone. If there is a sense of pride as he summons the statistic that ‘it’s number 10 in the country for the ratio of doctoral members of staff’, his relating of the growth of Hope – born out of the merging of St Katharine’s with two Catholic teacher-training colleges, the 1960s-built Christ’s College over the road, and Notre Dame College, based at Mount Pleasant – comes interspersed with family connections.

His mother Maureen studied at Notre Dame as did his sister Mary, while his niece Celia – among his guests at the graduation ceremony – was a student at Hope. Even Hope’s creative campus on the site of the old SFX College has a Devine link as ‘my dad went there as a kid to the Jesuits’.

On Mgr John’s time as Pro-chancellor, Fr Peter McGrail told those gathered at Liverpool Cathedral that ‘he brought to the role not only a wealth of experience of working ecumenically but also a unique combination of concern for the student’s intellectual development and heart of a pastor.’ This extended to him urging each new intake of undergraduates to ‘get into the habit of reading a broadsheet newspaper and to phone home!’.

As for the ‘long, varied and rich life of priestly ministry’ that Fr Peter spoke of, this began with an eight-year posting with the Skelmersdale team ministry, followed by nine years in Peru – the first five with the Liverpool Archdiocesan Missionary Project (LAMP), when he first began writing for Catholic Pic, and then four more as the first English head of the US-run Missionary Society of St James, based in Lima.

Mgr John recalls that his time in Peru ‘put everything into much sharper focus. You didn't have to think about what your role was. It was staring you in the face because there was so much poverty, so much suffering on an industrial scale, and with that came a sense that you're not in charge and never will be. And people who are poor have a much more sharply focused insight into the Gospel. When we read the Scriptures, we tend to react as if Jesus's miracles are a metaphor for something. But for the poor people of Peru, he's on their side.’

In the 1990s, Mgr John was the final director of StJoseph’s College, Upholland and also chaired the editorial board of the CatholicPic. He was a made a prelate of honour by Pope John Paul II in 1992 and hasworn many other hats since – including, from 2000, the role of Churches’Officer for the northwest of England, based at the North West Development Agency,reporting on faith community engagement in the public realm to senior Churchleaders of all denominations. This earned him, in 2011, an OBE for services tointer-faith relations. He has also received the Archbishop Derek Worlock andBishop David Sheppard award for service to the Churches of Merseyside.

After serving as parish priest at St Benedict’s and St Mary’s in Warrington, he moved in 2015 to the Isle of Man. There he has been parish priest of St Mary of the Isle, Douglas; St Anthony’s, Onchan; and St Joseph’s, Willaston, in addition to five years as the Archdiocesan Episcopal Vicar for Finance.

‘I've discovered in life nothing is ever wasted,’ he reflects of his decade on the Isle of Man. ‘Your previous experiences, even if you're not aware of them actually prepare you for what's demanded of you later in indirect ways.’

In 2023 he oversaw the process of St Mary’s gaining its co-cathedral status, thus strengthening the ties with Liverpool. And his ability to make connections has helped him work closely with civic bodies too, as illustrated by the invitation he received to be chaplain to two different mayors of Douglas, a role traditionally held by an Anglican cleric.

‘Having worked with civic authorities and central government on public-policy issues relating to faith communities, I found it easy to form relations with people who aren't Catholics and don't go to church necessarily,’ he says. ‘On the island, we take ecumenical co-operation for granted and I’ve had close relationships with the Church leaders of all the different denominations.

‘It’s a busy place with a lot of diversity, with people from all over the world. I'm used to working with people from a different culture and that prepares you for the fact people do things differently and think differently.’

His Liverpool Hope connections helped when, together with the Albert Gubay Foundation, he helped set up grants for disadvantaged Manx students to study at the university – an initiative sadly ended by the Covid pandemic. And his deep-rooted interest in education extended to him helping the local St Mary’s Primary School flourish once more.

It was at St Mary’s Cathedral that his ‘strawberries and fizz’ farewell party took place on Sunday 20 July, three days prior to the Liverpool Hope graduation event. His actual departure date from the Isle of Man comes on31 August, when he will board a ferry back to Liverpool with Scamp, his Bedlington terrier.

He is looking forward to more time with his beloved books and motorbike, though there is much he will miss – not least the Isle of Man’s scenery. ‘Even if it's chucking down with rain, it's fantastic. Niarbyl is a wonderful little bay on the west coast. On a clear day you can see the Mountains of Mourne, where my grandmother came from. You can climb up and see Ireland, Scotland, Cumbria – and even, on a clear day, North Wales.’ Fitting words from a man with a gift for seeing the bigger picture.

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