Educated in Canada and Brasenose College, Oxford, Kent was ordained into the Roman Catholic ministry at Westminster in 1958. Catholic Chaplain to London University (1966–1974). In 1980 he was elected General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Under Kent, CND became an active force once more in response to the deployment of American cruise missiles in Britain, and the politics of the latter years of the Cold War. Disarmament again became an issue for Labour and contributed to the breakaway of the Social Democrats in 1981. Kent became CND Chairman in 1987, the year he resigned his Ministry. He was President of the International Peace Bureau (1985–1992) and the National Peace Council (1999–2000). Bruce Kent recalls that Schwarz asked to paint him, and did so in three sittings in Kent's flat in North London, in December 1992 and February 1993.