Monsignor John Devine was brought up in Christ the King parish,Childwall, he had studied at Upholland from the age of 12 and, following his ordination at 25, spent eight years in Skelmersdale in team ministry. From there he found himself in the Peruvian coastal town of Chimbote, a place that‘stank of fish’ for its anchovy processing plants and whose German steelworks‘ belched out orange smoke so thick that some days you had to have your headlights on to drive during the day.
‘In a situation like South America, where you’ve got extremes of poverty and wealth alongside each other, poor people have a clarity of vision,’ he adds. ‘There’s no such thing as moral dilemmas there – it is night and day, rich and poor.’
In the Metropolitan Cathedral today stands a memento of his days in Peru in the life-sized statue of St Martin de Porres made by the late Peruvian sculptor Isabel Benavides, whom John had introduced to Archbishop Derek Worlock. ‘We discovered he’d been at school with her brother. He asked if she’d be prepared to do a sculpture of Martin de Porres for our cathedral. She used as the model a basketball player and we got it cast in bronze and shipped it to Liverpool.’
John himself landed back in Liverpool in 1990 and spent a decade as director atUpholland, by now a very different place. ‘There’d been 48 in my year and itwas two-form entry,’ he recalls. ‘They built a new wing at the college becauseit wasn’t big enough. Then, within a few years, the climate changed.’
And it has continued to change. ‘I was ordained when Vatican II was still new and there was an excitement about that. Then it looked as if pendulum was swinging the other way, though I've found Pope Francis a breath of fresh air. I'm biased because he's from South America.’
He reflects too on the ‘move away from tribal Catholicism’ and altered perceptions about the priesthood. ‘It wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea to be a priest but it was still considered a normal aspiration for a Catholic kid of 12,’he says of his early vocation.
‘If you did it now you’d be considered an oddity but in those days it wasn’tthe case. When priests came and visited our house in Childwall, they always gotcake. The priests I knew worked hard and were respected in the community.’
Half a century on from his ordination by Archbishop George Andrew Beck on a warm June afternoon he considers that ‘my role as a priest is to set people free.’ And where his people are today is the Isle of Man. He is parish priest at St Mary of the Isle and St Joseph in Douglas and St Anthony of Padua in Onchan, as well as the area dean. ‘When the sun shines, it’s the most beautiful place in the world,’ he says.
He makes regular visits to Liverpool for his work as episcopal vicar for finance, employing the experience gained in such roles as churches officer for the North-West (2000-2012) and pro-chancellor and chair of governors at Liverpool Hope University (2008-2017).
Now 75, he will not be relinquishing all his responsibilities just yet but has discussed ‘a staged retirement’ with Archbishop Malcolm McMahon.
Nor, finally, will he be giving up his beloved motorbikes – his preferred modeof transport since his last year at seminary. ‘I was a deacon then and travelledout to Skelmersdale on my bike. It’s rare I’ve been without a bike since thoughI’ve come down in size. I used to have 1300cc big ones. I’ve now got an 800cc Triumph.
‘A few years ago I went to Turkey. I went on my own through 13 countries andgot as far as Istanbul.’ Just one of his many adventures. ‘My life has been aseries of adventures … none of them were ever planned!’
