Malcolm McMahon

Last updated

His Grace The Most Reverend

Malcolm McMahon

OP KC*HS
Archbishop of Liverpool
Vice President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales
Bishop of Nottingham (15943683583) (cropped).jpg
McMahon pictured in 2011
Church Roman Catholic Church
Archdiocese Archdiocese of Liverpool
Province Province of Liverpool
Appointed21 March 2014
Installed1 May 2014
Predecessor Patrick Kelly
SuccessorIncumbent
Other post(s)Chair of the Catholic Education Service (CES)
Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Catholic Trust for England and Wales (CATEW)
National President of Pax Christi
National Ecclesiastical Advisor to the Knights of Saint Columba
Orders
Ordination26 June 1982
by  Basil Hume
Consecration8 December 2000
by  James Joseph McGuinness
Personal details
Born
Malcolm Patrick McMahon

(1949-06-14) 14 June 1949 (age 74)
London, England
NationalityEnglish
Denomination Roman Catholic Church
ResidenceArchbishop's House, Salisbury Road, Liverpool
Previous post(s) Bishop of Nottingham (2000–2014)
Prior of Blackfriars, Oxford (2000)
Prior Provincial of the English Province of the Dominican Order (1992–2000)
Alma mater University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
Motto'Non Nisi Te'
(None but you, Lord)
Coat of arms Coat of arms of Malcolm Patrick McMahon.svg
Styles of
Malcolm McMahon
Coat of arms of Malcolm Patrick McMahon.svg
Reference style The Most Reverend
Spoken style Your Grace
Religious style Archbishop

Malcolm Patrick McMahon, OP, KC*HS (born 14 June 1949) is an English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. Since 2014, he has been the ninth Archbishop of Liverpool. Previously, he was Bishop of Nottingham from 2000 to 2014.

Contents

Early life and ministry

Malcolm McMahon was born in London, the second of three brothers and studied mechanical engineering at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology before working for London Transport. In 1976, he decided upon an ecclesiastical career and joined the Dominican Order. Making his religious profession in December 1977, McMahon studied philosophy at Blackfriars, Oxford and theology at Heythrop College. He was ordained to the priesthood by Cardinal Basil Hume on 26 June 1982.

He served as chaplain of Leicester Polytechnic for the 1986/7 academic year, whence he served in a London parish. McMahon later became Parish Priest of St Dominic's in Newcastle upon Tyne (1989), and of St Dominic's in Haverstock Hill (1990). He was elected prior provincial of the Dominicans' English Province in both 1992 and 1996. In 2000, he was elected prior of Blackfriars, Oxford.

Episcopal career

Bishop of Nottingham

On 7 November 2000, McMahon was appointed Bishop of Nottingham by Pope John Paul II. He received his episcopal consecration on the following 8 December from Bishop James Joseph McGuinness, with Bishops Victor Guazzelli and Patrick O'Donoghue serving as co-consecrators, in the Cathedral Church of St. Barnabas.

McMahon's name had been mentioned as a possible successor to Cormac Murphy-O'Connor as Archbishop of Westminster [1] and to Kevin McDonald as Archbishop of Southwark. He serves as Chair of the Department of Education and Formation of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, Chair of the Catholic Education Service, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Catholic Trust of England & Wales, Ecclesiastical Advisor to the Knights of Saint Columba, and President of the British Section of Pax Christi, the international Catholic peace movement.

Archbishop of Liverpool

On 21 March 2014 Pope Francis appointed Bishop McMahon as the ninth Archbishop of the Metropolitan See of Liverpool. [2] Archbishop McMahon was enthroned at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King on 1 May 2014, the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker, before a congregation of three thousand.

During his tenure in Liverpool, in 2017 and 2018, Archbishop McMahon ordained priests for the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter in St Mary's Church, Warrington, [3] utilising the pre-1970 rite of ordination. [4]

Views

Archbishop McMahon has said that there is no doctrinal reason preventing priests from having wives: [5]

There is no reason why priests shouldn't be allowed to marry. It has always been a matter of discipline rather than doctrine[...]It is a question of justice for those men who want to be priests and to have a wife. Marriage should not bar them from their vocation but they must be married before they are ordained. The justice issue also applies to communities which could be deprived of the Eucharist because there aren't enough priests.

He considers clerical celibacy as a "spiritual necessity". In a pastoral letter read in the Diocese of Nottingham on Sunday 25 October 2009, then Bishop McMahon said: [6]

Another aspect of priesthood that is often challenged is that of mandatory celibacy for our priests. Yet the celibate priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church has always been understood as a special gift that we should treasure. In our tradition, celibacy is not a mere external rule but a spiritual necessity.

He also supports the role of women in Catholic Church, but is against the ordination of women as priests: [7]

I look forward to the day when women play a greater role in ministry and take up more of a place in the Church, but not in sacred orders.

In the same pastoral letter, Bishop McMahon said: [8]

In the Mass, the Church follows the words of Christ himself when the bread and wine are consecrated; it has not made up these words, neither does the Church consider that it has the authority to make such a change. In a similar way only men are ordained in the Church because to ordain women would be to devise something that Christ did not institute.

In April 2010, Bishop McMahon appeared on the BBC's Hard Talk to discuss the Church's response to the sexual abuse of children. He defended the work of the Holy See and the Church in England and Wales on this and expressed the hope that the Vatican would become more open and transparent in its treatment of victims and perpetrators.

Personal info

In his free time, the Archbishop enjoys playing golf and listening to live music and opera but also admits to being a fan of Norah Jones.

Portrait

On 21 March 2017, Hardman Portrait published a portrait of Archbishop McMahon to be displayed to the public in the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral Crypt. Archbishop McMahon is depicted in choir dress, mirroring the black and white portrait of his predecessor Archbishop Richard Downey. The portrait is one of a series of works depicting current members of Liverpool society alongside their predecessors. [9] [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clergy</span> Formal leaders within established religions

Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the terms used for individual clergy are clergyman, clergywoman, clergyperson, churchman, ecclesiastic, and cleric, while clerk in holy orders has a long history but is rarely used.

The canon law of the Roman Catholic Church requires that clerics "observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven". For this reason, priests in Roman Catholic dioceses make vows of celibacy at their ordination, thereby agreeing to remain unmarried and abstinent throughout their lives. The 1961 document entitled Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders stated that homosexual men should not be ordained. In 2005, the Church clarified that men with "deeply rooted homosexual tendencies" cannot be ordained. The Vatican followed up in 2008 with a directive to implement psychological screening for candidates for the priesthood. Conditions listed for exclusion from the priesthood include "uncertain sexual identity" and "deep-seated homosexual tendencies".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool</span> Catholic archdiocese in England

The Archdiocese of Liverpool is a Latin Church archdiocese of the Catholic Church that covers the Isle of Man and part of North West England. The episcopal see is Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. The archdiocese is the centre of the Ecclesiastical Province of Liverpool which covers the north of England as well as the Isle of Man.

The Pastoral Provision is a set of practices and norms in the Catholic Church in the United States, by which bishops are authorized to provide spiritual care for Catholics converting from the Anglican tradition, by establishing parishes for them and ordaining priests from among them. The provision provides a way for individuals to become priests in territorial dioceses, even after Pope Benedict XVI's Anglicanorum Coetibus proclamation established the Personal Ordinariates, a non-diocesan mechanism for former Anglicans to join the Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terrence Prendergast</span>

Terrence Thomas Prendergast is a Canadian member of the Society of Jesus who is also a prelate of the Roman Catholic Church and the Archbishop Emeritus of Ottawa-Cornwall. He was formerly an Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Toronto and the Archbishop of Halifax. On 6 May 2020 Pope Francis merged the Archdiocese of Ottawa and the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall, naming Prendergast Archbishop of the newly formed Archdiocese of Ottawa-Cornwall. He formally retired in 4 December 2020, and was succeeded by Marcel Damphousse, the Coadjutor Archbishop.

Patrick Altham Kelly PHL KC*HS is an English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the archbishop emeritus of the Archdiocese of Liverpool following his resignation which took effect on 27 February 2013; he was formerly Vice President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.

Patrick O'Donoghue was an Irish Roman Catholic bishop who served as the fifth Bishop of Lancaster, who led the diocese from 2001 to 2009.

John Anthony Rawsthorne is a retired English Roman Catholic prelate who served as the Bishop of Hallam from 1997 to 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Catholic Diocese of Nottingham</span> Suffragan diocese of the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church in England

The Diocese of Nottingham(Latin: Dioecesis Nottinghamensis) is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic church in England. and a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of the Metropolitan Diocese of Westminster.

Married Priests Now! (MPN!) is an advocacy group founded and formerly led by Emmanuel Milingo, a former Catholic bishop from Zambia. MPN is a liberal Catholic organization calling for relaxing the rules concerning marriage in the Latin Church's priesthood. Milingo has said that "There is no more important healing than the reconciliation of 150,000 married priests with the 'Mother Church', and the healing of a Church in crisis through renewing marriage and family."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Priesthood in the Catholic Church</span> One of the three ordained holy orders of the Catholic Church

The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms priest refers only to presbyters and pastors. The church's doctrine also sometimes refers to all baptised (lay) members as the "common priesthood", which can be confused with the ministerial priesthood of the consecrated clergy.

Clerical celibacy is the discipline within the Catholic Church by which only unmarried men are ordained to the episcopate, to the priesthood in the Latin Church, and similarly to the diaconate. In other autonomous particular churches, the discipline applies only to the episcopate. According to Jason Berry of The New York Times, "The requirement of celibacy is not dogma; it is an ecclesiastical law that was adopted in the Middle Ages because Rome was worried that clerics' children would inherit church property and create dynasties."

Brian Michael Noble was an English prelate who served in the Roman Catholic Church as the Bishop of Shrewsbury from 1995 to 2010.

Patrick Percival "Pat" Power is a retired Australian bishop of the Catholic Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dermot Farrell</span> Metropolitan Archbishop of Dublin

Dermot Pius Farrell KC*HS is an Irish Roman Catholic prelate who has served as Archbishop of Dublin since 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Mary's Church, Warrington</span> Church in England, England

St Mary's Church, or St Mary's Priory, is in the town centre of Warrington, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building, and is an active Catholic church. The parish was established and served by Benedictine monks from Ampleforth Abbey, but following the withdrawal of Ampleforth Abbey from the parish in 2012, it was served by the priest from St Benedict's Church, Warrington. From November 2015, the church has been owned and served by priests from the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) as a shrine church dedicated to the celebration of the sacraments of the pre-Vatican II form of the Roman Rite. It is well known for the beauty and reverence of its liturgy.

A personal ordinariate for former Anglicans, shortened as personal ordinariate or Anglican ordinariate, is an ordinariate, a canonical structure within the Catholic Church established in order to enable "groups of Anglicans" and Methodists to join the Catholic Church while preserving elements of their liturgical and spiritual patrimony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Davies (bishop of Shrewsbury)</span> British Roman Catholic prelate

Mark Davies is a British Roman Catholic prelate. He is the 11th Bishop of the Diocese of Shrewsbury in the Province of Birmingham, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Byrne (bishop)</span> English prelate of the Catholic Church (born 1956)

Robert Byrne, C.O. is a prelate of the Catholic Church in England. He was the 14th Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Birmingham and the titular bishop of Cuncacestre. He is the first Oratorian to be appointed a bishop in England since 1874.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick McKinney</span>

Patrick Joseph McKinney is the 10th Bishop of Nottingham. His appointment was announced on 14 May 2015 by Pope Francis. He previously served as a member of the clergy of the Archdiocese of Birmingham and Rector of St Mary's College, Oscott.

References

  1. ↑ Thompson, Damian (6 February 2009). "Paddy Power suspends betting on Bishop Malcolm McMahon for Westminster". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 31 August 2011.
  2. ↑ BBC News – New Archbishop of Liverpool named as Bishop Malcolm McMahon
  3. ↑ Harkins, Simon (7 July 2017). "North American District Seminarians Ordained in England". FSSP.com. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  4. ↑ "Father Seth Phipps Ordained in England". FSSP.com. 15 June 2018. Retrieved 8 March 2021.
  5. ↑ Wynne-Jones, Jonathan (8 November 2008). "Catholic Church has no reason to stop priests from marrying, says leading bishop". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 December 2008.
  6. ↑ http://www.catholicnews.org.uk/Home/News/2009/Pastoral-Letter-for-the-Year-of-the-Priest-from-Bishop-Malcolm-McMahon-OP
  7. ↑ Wynne-Jones, Jonathan (8 November 2008). "Catholic Church has no reason to stop priests from marrying, says leading bishop". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 December 2008.
  8. ↑ http://www.catholicnews.org.uk/Home/News/2009/Pastoral-Letter-for-the-Year-of-the-Priest-from-Bishop-Malcolm-McMahon-OP
  9. ↑ https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C7Xi1IqXUAAMvXp.jpg:large [ bare URL image file ]
  10. ↑ Chambre Hardman [@HardmanPortrait] (21 March 2017). "Archbishop Malcolm McMahon 2017 - Soon to be shown @LiverpoolMet" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

-->

Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Bishop of Nottingham
2000–2014		Succeeded by
Preceded by Archbishop of Liverpool
2014–present		Incumbent
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.