Heskett appointed new Bishop of Hallam

POPE FRANCIS has named Gibraltar Bishop Ralph Heskett to become the next Bishop of Hallam, in south Yorkshire, writes James Macintyre.

He is the third Religious to be appointed to a diocese in England and Wales this year following Archbishop Malcolm McMahon, a Dominican, being named for Liverpool and Fr Alan Williams, a Marist, as Bishop of Brentwood.

Bishop Heskett, a Redemptorist, was born in 1953 and from 1987 to 1990 he was superior of the Redemptorist Community at Perth in Scotland. He also served in Liverpool and at St Mary’s Church in Clapham, south-west London before becoming Bishop of Gibraltar in 2010.

Bishop Heskett expressed surprise at his appointment: “I was surprised to be asked to be bishop four years ago and I am even more surprised now to be asked to be the new Bishop of Hallam,” he said. “Over the last four years, when I have been asked, ‘How long do you expect to be in Gibraltar?’ I have always replied, ‘Until they bury me in the crypt of the cathedral!’ ”

He succeeds Bishop John Rawsthorne, 77, who has led Hallam since 1997.