New Leeds bishop pledges frugal leadership of diocese

The newly appointed Bishop of Leeds this week pledged ­himself to frugal management and to a policy of listening to the people of his diocese, which has suffered financial difficulties in recent years.

“Anyone who knows me will tell you I don’t like spending money,” Mgr Marcus Stock, the outgoing general secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, told The Tablet. “I have no plans to spend any money at all, and I like to think of myself as someone who lives frugally.”
The diocese has been without a bishop since 2012 when then Bishop Arthur Roche was appointed secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and also raised to archbishop.

His move came not long after a report was published in 2012 that criticised a major parish ­reorganisation programme in Leeds. Carried out by the Glasgow-based management ­consultants, the Kinharvie Institute, the independent report concluded that the reorganisation had been badly managed, that it had failed to get both people and some priests onside, and that it had left “significant levels of disappointment, sadness, pain and especially anger” in its wake.

The diocese has also struggled financially with overspending and earlier this year announced it had cut £800,000 and put a freeze on building projects. Funding retired clergy, seminarians and maintaining parish properties were all cited as strains on expenditure. During Archbishop Roche’s tenure, £1.5 million was spent on a refurbishment of the cathedral.

Mgr Stock, 53, who has been general secretary of the bishops’ conference since 2009, said he had only learned of his appointment last week, and had not yet had time to read the Kinharvie report or to get to grips with the detail of what lay ahead of him in Leeds.

“There will be issues regarding funds,” he said. “There are in most dioceses. Income from investment has reduced, and this is something all bishops are having to address.”

On the subject of parish ­reorganisation, he said the ­programme – called “Providing Priests for the People” – had now been implemented and would be difficult to reverse, adding: “But where people have felt hurt and are feeling angry I will do my very best to listen to what they have to say.”

The bishop-elect, who is widely seen as having been an effective administrator in his role at the bishops’ conference, explained that his first priority would be to listen.

“I have an understanding of many of the issues priests face, and I hope I will be a good listener and that I can reflect some of their issues,” he said. 

 Mgr Stock – whose episcopal ordination will take place on 13 November at Leeds Cathedral – said the clergy were the key.

“The priests and deacons are my chief collaborators, so the first thing I need to do is get to know them,” he said, adding that his task was to look to the future rather than to concentrate on the issues of the past.

Mgr Stock, who was ordained in 1988 and served as a parish priest in the Archdiocese of Birmingham, said his very first act, on hearing he had been appointed to the Leeds post, had been to visit the Carmelite ­community near Wetherby to ask them for their prayers.

“The sisters are the powerhouse of the Church, our spiritual ­battery, and we all need their prayers,” he said.

One parish priest in Leeds, who preferred not to be named, said: “What we need here is a pastoral man who is interested in ­community rather than in power and privilege.”