Des Wilson (Irish Catholic priest) dating history

Details

Francis Desmond Wilson (1925–2019) was an Irish Catholic priest and church dissident who in the course of the Northern Ireland Troubles embraced ideas and practice associated, internationally, with liberation theology. Active in working-class and Irish nationalist West Belfast, he defended the right of communities failed by the state to create “alternative education, alternative welfare, alternative theatre, broadcasting, theological and political discussion, public inquiries and much else”. More controversially, he did not condemn paramilitary groups when they presented themselves, in his words, as “alternative police and alternative armies”.