Walsingham director named as bishop

the LONG-awaited announcement of a new Bishop of Brentwood was made this week with the surprise appointment of a Marist priest who is currently the director of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, writes Christopher Lamb.

Fr Alan Williams, 63, will succeed Bishop Thomas McMahon, 77, who has led the diocese for 34 years. He submitted his resignation to Benedict XVI in June 2011.

Fr Williams admitted surprise at the news of his appointment and pledged himself to be a bishop who would make service to others a priority. “I always need that pastoral dimension,” he said after the news was made public. “I am not somebody who would be happy simply sitting in an office.”

The bishop-elect was born in Oldham, Lancashire and studied natural sciences at Durham University; he holds a doctorate in psychology from the University of London and a theology degree from the University of Cambridge.

Professed as a Marist in 1976, Fr Williams has experience in education, having worked as a teacher, and as a school and university chaplain. He was made director of the Walsingham shrine in Norfolk in 2008 after serving as superior of the Marists in England since 2000.

“I need to listen, I need to learn a lot,” he said of his new role. “I thrive on working with people, that brings out the best on me.”

While at Walsingham – which is also a centre for devotion for Anglo-Catholics – Fr Williams has come to know priests of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham and its ordinary, Mgr Keith Newton. The Diocese of Brentwood has 10 ordinariate priests. The bishop-elect has also worked with Travellers and is a trustee of the Notre Dame Refugee Centre in Leicester Square, central London.