Canon Peter Ball Much loved priest who decided cathedral life was not for him
CANON PETER BALL, who has died aged 90, was a Canon Residentiary and Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral from 1984 to 1990. He had previously spent 16 years as Rector of Shepperton in West London where his outstanding pastoral gifts and thoughtful sermons were much valued.
These talents took him to St Paul’s at a time when the cathedral’s chapter was riven by strife and the then Dean, Alan Webster, hoped that his presence might be a calming, reconciling influence. Unfortunately it was not and, although he exercised an appreciated ministry in and from St Paul’s, Ball concluded after six difficult years that cathedral life was not for him.
He therefore retired early and devoted the next two decades to a freelance ministry as a spiritual director and conductor of retreats. He wrote several books on the spiritual life as well as others on adult religious education, in which he was also skilled.
Peter William Ball was born on January 17 1930. He went from Aldenham School to Worcester College, Oxford, where he took a second in Greats and completed his preparation for Holy Orders at Cuddesdon Theological College.
From 1955 to 1961 he was a curate at All Saints, Poplar, one of the large East End of London parishes, then became vicar of the Church of the Ascension, Wembley Park, in north London.
He was there for seven years and, besides exercising a stimulating ministry in the parish, became the first director of the Brent Samaritans and chaplain to Rediffusion Television – one of the first independent television companies serving the Greater London region.
Ball proved to be a particularly sensitive pastor in the demanding sphere of television production and, soon after moving to Shepperton in 1968, he became chaplain to Thames Television, which happened to be located in the parish.
He continued this special ministry for the next 23 years, becoming an important figure in the company, respected and valued by performers as well as producers and technicians. He was also deputy director of the North West Surrey Samaritans and Area Dean of Spelthorne, embracing 10 west London parishes.
The significance of his work was recognised by appointment as a Prebendary of St Paul’s in 1976. When he was appointed a Canon Residentiary in 1984, Ball’s particular brief as Chancellor was oversight of the cathedral’s educational programme.
This involved responsibility for courses of lectures and seminars, which suited him well since his parish experience had led him to recognise the importance of better religious education for lay people, whose own general educational standard was higher than ever before.
He was not alone in this, and became involved in the European Conference on the Catechumenate, in which Anglicans and Roman Catholics shared their insights and experience in this field. He was chairman in 1983, and from 1984 to 1987 also director of post-ordination training and continuing ministerial education in the diocese of London.
In the end, however, he found the constant conflict with the cathedral chapter an obstacle to his ministry and an offence to his faith, so he resigned.
Of his books, Journey in Faith (1984), Adult Believing (1988), Adult Way to Faith (1992) and Journey into Truth (1996) were related to his educational work, while Anglican Spiritual Direction (1998) and Introducing Spiritual Direction (2003) expressed some of the insights of his later ministry which he exercised from Marlborough in Wiltshire.
Ball’s wife, Angela, died in 2004 and he is survived by a son and two daughters.
Canon Peter Ball, born January 17 1930, died January 14 2021