Canon Michael Bayldon is the Parish Priest at St Paulinus RC Church at Guisborough and on Monday 22nd February celebrated his Ruby Jubilee of 40 years as a priest. Fr Michael, as he likes to be known, was ordained as a priest on 22nd February 1970 by Bishop John Gerard McClean at St John of Beverley Church in Beverley. It is particularly appropriate that Pope Benedict XVI has decreed that 2010 should be the ‘Year of the Priest’.

Fr Michael has been the Parish Priest at St Paulinus since 1997 when the Church was situated in Park Lane, Guisborough. One of Fr Michael’s major achievements has been to manage the building and provision of a new church for the parish at The Avenue, which will be blessed on 21st May. This has not been an easy process as the finance has had to be raised locally and at first faced objections from the local residents. However, following formal planning committee approval, the Church was completed and opened in December 2009. However Fr Michael says modestly ‘Whilst the building may be physically impressive, it is to the community to which it witnesses that the honours should go. We follow our ministry as priests in the service of Christ and pledge to do our work’.

Fr Michael has had a diverse and interesting career as a Catholic priest and was a parish priest at Middlesbrough, Scarborough, Yarm and Thornaby before coming to Guisborough. However, in addition to parish duties, he has been a hospital chaplain and a prison chaplain, and was Head of the Diocesan Education Service for eight years. He was appointed a Canon of the Diocese in 1998.

He was born at Bridlington in 1945, where his father was latterly a caterer and hotelier. He was educated at Beverley and Ushaw College at Durham and has a Master of Arts degree in Catholic theology from Maynooth College in Ireland, as well as a degree from the Open University Foundation Studies in Social Sciences. Fr Michael has been very active in publishing various works on theology, history and education, as well as preparing and presenting religious programmes on TV and radio and is still involved in journals, such as Catholic Education Today. He also had 11 years developmental work on Adult Formation packages in the 1970s and 1980s and said ‘I have spent the best part of 30 years engaged in various forms of education and worked with many Local Authorities at the cutting edge of schooling reform in the Thatcher and Blair eras’.

In a review of his life as a priest, Fr Michael says

Much of my life has been devoted to the study of Sacred Scripture and the tasks of educating ourselves to know and understand the Word of God. However my life as a priest has been centred on an appointment to a parish but I have been privileged to address some of the needs of folk in the downside of life as a hospital chaplain in Scarborough and a prison chaplain in Yarm, where I had to connect with people in their most vulnerable times. It was unseen and usually very difficult work but much appreciated by those who received it. All through my life I have had the advantage of others sharing their experience and expertise in a wide range of tasks and duties.

Fr Michael will continue to develop the St Paulinus parish, looking forward to the blessing of the new church, and says ‘There have been times of tremendous uplift and joy. To rejoice in the laughter of people at weddings and the squeals of children at baptisms is an aspect for which there is no substitute, as well as the solemn moments at the graveside and bereavements’.

Publications and Interests

• The Medieval Foundations of Bridlington Priory in association with East Riding of Yorkshire County Council
• Essays in Clergy Review, The Furrow, The Sower New Blackfriars Adoremus, 1972
• Poetry on Spiritual and Doctrinal Themes
• Translation of Liturgical Hymnody from Latin and Greek Priginals
• Contributor to liturgical publication Celebration USA Journal of Liturgy 1980-86
• Contributor of The Holy Week Epilogue Tyne Tees TV 1988+
• Editor and presenter of Glorytime on BBC Local Radio 1971-72
• Compiler of a number of audio-visual religious programmes – Passion, Stations of the Cross, Mary in the New Testament
• Son et Lumiere soundtrack compilations in association with Philips’ Lighting Corporation
• Co-worker in administration of pastoral journal on the Eucharist, Adoremus, until 1983
• Current studies – Development of Mystagogical Catechesis and Doctrinal Research on The Notion of Spiritual Decay
• Member of the Durham University Catholic Theology Research Seminar
• Member of the Editorial Board of Networking in Catholic Education Today
• Academic Advisory Consultancy: Catholic Schooling in England, Agreements between Church and State from 1850
• Ancient Liturgies in Contemporary Settings – a review of influences on Vatican II liturgies

Brian Gleeson