Bishop Mark Jabale inducted as Parish Priest

Bishop Mark Jabalé OSB, Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Menevia was Inducted as Parish Priest of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Chipping Norton, by Archbishop Vincent Nichols, on Friday 13 March.

In his homily, the Archbishop of Birmingham, emphasised that it was "very rare" for a bishop to be Inducted as a parish priest.

Fr Mark, as he is known to his new parishioners, was a Benedictine monk at Belmont Abbey in Herefordshire. He was Headmaster at Belmont, the school attached to the monastery from 1969 until 1983.

Dom Mark was sent to Peru to build the monastery of the Incarnation in Sullana which Belmont was founding. In 1986 he was appointed Prior and then Abbot of Belmont.

Abbot Mark was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Menevia in South Wales, by Pope John Paul II in December 2000 and installed as Bishop on 12 June 2001.

John Mark Jabalé OSB, was born on 16 October 1933 in Alexandria, Egypt. Pope Benedict XVI accepted his resignation as Bishop of Menevia on his 75th birthday, 16 October 2008.

Archbishop Nichols told the congregation in the little church in Chipping Norton built in 1836, that Bishop Mark was the first Benedictine bishop to work in the Archdiocese of Birmingham since the death of Bishop William Bernard Ullathorne, OSB (the first Bishop of Birmingham), on 21 March 1889.

"In order that Bishop Mark will feel at home in his new diocese I am wearing Bishop Ullathorne's ring and using his crosier," said Archbishop Nichols.

After the service, the Rural Dean, Canon Mervyn Tower, Parish Priest of St John the Evangelist said: "As the Banbury Deanery, we welcome Bishop Mark amongst us and pray that he will be very happy here in Oxfordshire. We have lost the Jesuits (who came from Heythrop College) but gained a Benedictine."