John Arnold (bishop)


John Stanley Kenneth Arnold is the eleventh Roman Catholic Bishop of Salford. He was formerly an auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster and held the titular see of Lindisfarne.

Early life

Arnold was born in Sheffield and attended Mylnhurst Convent School before attending Grace Dieu Manor School and Ratcliffe College, both schools run by the Institute of Charity. In 1975 he graduated with a law degree from Trinity College, Oxford and completed his legal qualification by being called to the Bar in the Middle Temple in 1976 after studies at the Council of Legal Education.

Ordained ministry

Arnold left the field of law and entered a seminary to undertake the studies for receiving Holy Orders in the Catholic Church. He was ordained on 16 July 1983 by Cardinal Basil Hume OSB, the Archbishop of Westminster.
Between 1981 and 1985 he studied for a JCD at the Gregoriana. After his ordination he was a chaplain of the cathedral from 1985 to 1988 and from 1988 to 1993 vice-administrator of the cathedral. In 1993 he was appointed pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. George, in Enfield. From 2001 to 2005 he was vicar general and chancellor of the diocese.
In recognition of this work as a priest, he was named a Chaplain of His Holiness.

Auxiliary Bishop

In December 2006 John Arnold was named as an auxiliary bishop for Westminster, for which office he was consecrated a bishop by the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor. He held responsibility for the pastoral care of the deaneries of Barnet, Brent, Enfield, Haringey and Harrow. He is also the chairman for the charity CAFOD, the Catholic Church's aid and development agency. He additionally served as chairman of the Oxford and Cambridge Catholic Education Board.

Bishop of Salford

On the 30th of September 2014, John Arnold was appointed as the 11th Bishop of Salford to succeed Bishop Terence Brain who had retired upon reaching the age of seventy-five. He was installed at Salford Cathedral on 8 December 2014.
in 2015 Bishop Arnold commenced a period of consultation to prepare the diocese for the future. 'A Proposal for Restructuring' was published in July 2016, with feedback invited until October. The final plan was then published in January 2017. The plans involve a drastic reduction in the numbers of parishes and churches within the diocese.