Fr. John Saward

Fr. John Saward taught dogmatic theology in England, the United States, and Austria, and is now priest in charge of the parish of Sts. Gregory and Augustine in Oxford. His books include “The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty,” and “Cradle of Redeeming Love,” and his 1993 Ignatius Press book “Redeemer in the Womb: Jesus Living in Mary,” which has just been republished by Word on Fire.

Having read Philosophy and Psychology at St John's College, Oxford, from 1965 to 1968, he went on to study Theology and to train for the Anglican ministry at St Stephen's House, Oxford. He was ordained as an Anglican clergyman in 1972. In 1973 he was awarded a M. Litt. in theology, for which he had submitted a thesis on 'The Theology of Death' under the supervision of Father Cornelius Ernst OP of Blackfriars, Oxford.

After two years as a curate in Lancashire, Saward returned to Oxford in 1974 as Chaplain and Junior Research Fellow in Theology at Lincoln College. In 1979 he and his family were received into the Catholic Church, and was later ordained a Catholic priest with papal dispensation. From 1980 to 1992 Saward was Lecturer in Dogmatic Theology at Ushaw College and from 1992 to 1998 Professor of Systematic Theology at St Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, USA.