V. A. Demant

Demant had originally intended to become a Unitarian minister, but became attracted to Catholicism while studying at the University of Oxford[13] and was received into the Church of England in 1918.[10] He trained for Holy Orders at Ely Theological College, an Anglo-Catholic theological college in Ely, Cambridgeshire.[11]

Demant was ordained as a deacon in 1919 and as a priest in 1920.[14] He served curacies at St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford; St Michael and All Angels Church, Summertown, Oxford; St Nicholas' Church, Plumstead, London; and All Saints' Church, Highgate, London.[15] From 1929 to 1933, he was an assistant priest at St Silas Church, Kentish Town.[16]

Demant became Vicar of St John the Divine, Richmond, in 1933 and nine years later he became a canon of St Paul's Cathedral.[17] He served as canon chancellor of the cathedral from 1942 to 1948 and as canon treasurer from 1948 to 1949.[1] He was a canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford from 1949 to 1971.[11]

Demant served on the Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution.[18] The committee's report, known as the Wolfenden report, was published in September 1957 and recommended that "homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence."[19]

Demant was a regular broadcaster on the BBC's Third Programme in the 1950s.[20] He supported Maurice Reckitt in founding the Christendom Trust to encourage and fund research into the application of Christian social thought.