New Bishop of Salford installed today

Bishop John Arnold has been installed as the new Bishop of Salford this morning.

Formerly Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster, Bishop Arnold was appointed to the position by Pope Francis in September.

Bishop Arnold was installed as the eleventh Bishop of Salford at the Cathedral Church of St John, in Salford, by Archbishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool. His predecessor, Bishop emeritus Terence Brain, presented him with his crozier.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor offered prayers during the service and concelebrated Mass.

Born in Sheffield in 1953, John Arnold studied law at Oxford before becoming a barrister in 1976. He joined the novitiate of the Institute of Charity (Rosminians) in 1978, transferring to the Archdiocese of Westminster in 1981. He obtained a doctorate in Canon Law from the English College in Rome, and was ordained deacon in 1982 and priest in 1983.

He served as both chaplain and sub-administrator at Westminster Cathedral, before becoming parish priest of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St George in Enfield in 1993. In 2001 Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor appointed him chancellor and vicar general of the Archdiocese of Westminster, and Saint John Paul II named him as a chaplain to the Papal household in 2003. He was ordained bishop in 2006.

He assisted in the compilation of two books published by Cardinal Basil Hume, Light in the Lord and Towards a Civilisation of Love, and contributed to AIDS: Meeting the Community Challenge. He published The Quality of Mercy, a fresh look at the Sacrament of Reconciliation, in 1993.