Priests

Fr Jeremy Davies, a former doctor who became a priest, spent 35 years as an exorcist, carrying out his ministry with quiet discipline, intellectual conviction and pastoral care If you entered Our Lady Help of Christians in Luton town centre for the 7am Mass on a weekday morning in the 2010s, you were one of few. Luton, a town about an hour’s drive from England’s capital, is known for its poverty and its history of extremism. An outpost of Al-Muhajiroun, radical Muslims famously held Islamist rallies there to protest the return of fallen British soldiers from Afghanistan. It is also home to the English Defence League, founded by Luton native Tommy Robinson, who has become one of the most recognisable faces of Britain’s hard right. There are many more mosques than Catholic churches in Luton. A parish priest in Bury Park, the town’s most densely Muslim area, once told me there were 16 mosques within his parish boundaries. Evangelicals also maintain a strong presence, particularly in High Town, an area with a large white working-class population. Hope Church, a Newfrontiers congregation, is particularly active in serving the town’s more marginalised residents. However, if you did enter Our Lady Help of Christians for the 7am Mass, you would likely have found yourself at a liturgy celebrated by Britain’s leading exorcist, Fr Jeremy Davies. Born in 1935 on the solemnity of the Annunciation, it was not expected that he would enter the priesthood. His father, a senior officer at RAF Fighter Command, left his wife and children to remarry, and there was still a healthy amount of anti-Catholic sentiment in civilised English society.