Peter Collins, a priest of the Archdiocese of Cardiff, was ordained Bishop of East Anglia on 14 December, the Feast of St John of the Cross, at the Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Norwich.
He was appointed in October to replace Bishop Alan Hopes, who has headed the diocese since 2013.
The representative of the apostolic nuncio, Mgr Ervin Lengyel, offered his thanks to Bishop Hopes and the Pope’s congratulations to Bishop Collins.
The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, gave the homily. He referred to the appointment of Bernard Ullathorne as a bishop in 1846, before the restoration of the hierarchy in England and Wales.
Bishop Ullathorne wrote: “There is nothing less desirable to flesh and blood than an English mitre – under any circumstances in this age.”
Cardinal Nichols cited the words of St Paul’s Letter to the Romans: “He tells us to judge soberly by the standards of faith, a task in which every bishop needs wise counsellors. He tells us to recognise and make good use of the variety of gifts given by the Holy Spirit. A spirit of ready cooperation lies at the heart of the life of a diocese.”
The cardinal added: “Our motivation in our life of service of the Lord can never remain at the level of fulfilling a duty, but it has to rise from an unambiguous love of Our Blessed Lord himself”.
He also prayed for the intercession of Our Lady of Walsingham, whose shrine lies in the diocese and quoted St John of the Cross, to whom Bishop Collins has professed a particular connection.
The 64-year-old Bishop Collins is the first Welsh-born member of the bishops’ conference of England and Wales since the retirement of Edwin Regan, the former Bishop of Wrexham, in 2012.
In his own address after his ordination, Bishop Collins said that it was “with a little trepidation that this Celt journeyed eastward to this gloriously fertile, though flat, land of Angles and Saxons”.
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