| Description | The correspondence and diaries cover James Sullivan's presidency at Lisbon College, the negotiations surrounding the closure of the college and the transfer of its archive and library to Ushaw College, and his time subsequently at the English College in Rome, notably his campaign to promote the issue of women priests. There are also transcripts of lectures and sermons on a variety of religious topics, as well as draft articles on spiritual subjects and the history of Lisbon College. There are also papers and photographs relating to personal achievements, particularly his Diamond and Golden Jubilees, and his appointment as protonotary apostolic and O.B.E. |
| Admin_History | James Sullivan was born in Halifax in 1903. He was educated at St Bede's Catholic Grammar School before training for the priesthood at the English College in Lisbon where he was ordained in 1929. He then took a degree in canon law at the Angelicum in Rome before returning to Lisbon College as a staff member and becoming vice-rector in 1934. In 1936 he returned to England to take up a post on the staff of St Joseph's Seminary in Leeds. He became its vice-rector in 1939, until the seminary closed towards the end of that year. He served in two parishes in the diocese before, in 1948, being appointed president of the college in Lisbon until its closure in 1973. In 1977, he went to the English College in Rome and stayed there for 20 years. Here he developed an interest in the issue of women priests in the Catholic Church and was an active campaigner in promoting its cause. In 1997, in frail health, he decided to return to Leeds and settled at Mount St Joseph's, Headingley, until his death on 10 January 1999. |