Hamish Swanston

Hamish F. G. Swanston, theologian and historian, was born in Oban, Scotland, in 1933 and ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1960. At the University of Canterbury in 1977, he became the first Catholic to head a Department of Theology at a British university since the Reformation. He lectures regularly on various topics, notably including seventeenth and eighteenth century European opera, on which he has spoken at the Kennedy Center and the Los Angeles Opera Center.

His publications include:

*"Community Witness"
*"Ideas of Order"
*"A Language for Madness"
*"Studies in the Sacraments" (two volumes)
*"In Defence of Opera"
*"Handel"
*"Celebrating Eternity Now: A Study in the Theology of St Alphonsus de Liguori"