Obituary: Canon James Morrow, Priest and pro-life campaigner

Canon James Morrow was a controversial priest whose pro-life views divided the country but who never faltered in his own beliefs. Inspiring crusader, obstructive zealot or merely quixotic eccentric, whatever the opinion he elicited, he rarely failed to grab attention for his campaign to protect the unborn.

Such attention often included that of the authorities and he served time in a number of prisons as a result of his anti-abortion protests, reportedly joking about his "good porridge guide" to jail.

Core to his activities was the belief that "Thou Shalt Not Kill", that no civil power could make divine law illegal and so the Abortion Act was invalid. He campaigned across the UK and abroad, staging demonstrations at abortion clinics and once threatening to mount a private prosecution for murder against the parents of Hillsborough coma victim Tony Bland, his doctors and an NHS Trust for allowing him to die.

He was born in Paisley, one of 12 children of Hugh and Catherine Morrow, and was five when he decided he wanted to become a priest. He attended St James's Primary School in Paisley and then the town's St Mirin's Academy, leaving in 1951 to start seven years of study at the Scots College in Rome. He gained his Licentiate in Philosophy and Theology at the Pontifical Gregorial University and was ordained in Rome on 1 March, 1958. He returned home to be appointed chaplain to the convent of Our Lady of the Missions in Cathcart, where he served from 1958 to 1961.

He was attending the University of Glasgow at the same time and graduated with an MA in 1961 before going on to complete a year's teacher training at Jordanhill College of Education.

From there he served on the staff of St Vincent's College in Langbank, part of the National Junior Seminary until 1968 when he was appointed to St Conval's Parish in Linwood, as assistant priest, for a year.

Between 1969 and 1980 he was on the staff of a senior part of the National Junior Seminary at St Mary's College at Blairs College, just outside Aberdeen. He ran enthusiastic chess clubs at both colleges and had an interest in writing and publishing, editing the Langbank College magazine. It was during his teaching career that he became increasingly concerned with pro-life issues, which became his life's work.

After leaving Blairs, he asked to remain in the Aberdeen Diocese and was appointed parish priest of St Andrew's RC Church in Braemar, where he spent ten years.He was also director of Humanae Vitae House at Braemar, a refurbished school next door to the church, where he ran a pro-life prayer, study and conference centre from 1984 to 1990.

He had been a pro-life activist from 1966, the year before the 1967 Abortion Act, and while at Braemar he campaigned tirelessly for the cause at home and abroad. He published a number of papers, including: Programme For Life, detailing his nine policies ranging from aiming to convert to not waiting for others to take the lead; Don't Poison Your Bride!, a warning on the "evils" of contraception, and A Constitutional Right to Rescue Unborn Children, in which he argued that man does not have the power to abolish God's laws, that he was entitled to love the unborn children and that stepping in peacefully between it and the mother at the "abortuary", as he described it, was the least he could do.

However, his protests led to a number of arrests throughout the UK and convictions, mainly for breaches of the peace. He had been released from parochial duties in 1990 to become a full-time pro-life campaigner and his refusal to pay the fines imposed by the courts in the early 1990s resulted in him being sent to Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen.

In 1996, he made an unsuccessful last-ditch attempt to save the life of Janet Johnston, Scotland's first right-to-die case.

Father Morrow suffered a serious stroke in 2000, but his enthusiasm for the cause did not diminish. He lived at Nazareth House in Aberdeen for several years and continued to campaign. He also established links with a diocese in Uganda, which he had visited several times though his intention to move there for longer periods was curbed by ill health.

In 2008 his home diocese of Paisley recognised his ministry in the defence of human life and made him an Honorary Canon of the Cathedral Chapter. Several months ago he moved to Nazareth House in Cardonald to be nearer his family, but had recently suffered another stroke.

The Catholic Church described him as a "dedicated, intelligent, articulate good man and priest", saying there have been few fighters as doughty as him and few publicists who had reached a wider audience.

Though his courage was admired the directness of his methods could be disconcerting. He once said: "I have written, typed, printed, published, leafleted, advertised, marched, lobbied, picketed, argued, debated, lectured, phoned, broadcast, counselled, travelled, harassed, begged, borrowed and prayed - and have three million dead babies to show for it."