Trail of chaos left by Cardinal Roche. He is now destroying the liturgy in the way he destroyed his diocese.

Cardinal Roche: his strange management methods in Leeds

Paix Liturgique has investigated Cardinal Roche, once bishop of Leeds where he left some bitter memories to say the least - a method that led to the total failure, human, pastoral, financial, that he is now replicating with the traditional Mass and its faithful...the result risks being the same.

"Before becoming Cardinal-Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship in Rome, responsible for the implementation of Desirio desideravi, the Franciscan charter for the new liturgy, Arthur Roche was Bishop of Leeds, England. He left mixed memories there, to put it mildly.

A technocratic Bishop

Born on 6 March 1950, he studied theology in Spain and was ordained for the diocese of Leeds in 1975, where he served as vicar, parish priest and vice-chancellor. After a period in Rome to complete his studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, he became General Secretary of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, then Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster and finally Coadjutor Bishop of the Diocese of Leeds in 2002.

In 2007, after costly work on the cathedral and his episcopal seat, Hinsley Hall, whose magnificence had led to it being described as the 'Vatican of the North' or 'mini-Vatican', the bishop decided to economise.

The town of Huddersfield - with its six parishes - became a test deanery for his restructuring programme, with Bishop Roche deciding that two parishes would be sufficient. The local press gave voice to the angry congregation of St James the Great: "We can't understand why anyone would want to close a church that is full every week and is in the black financially. [Many of us wrote to him [the bishop] during the consultation and we even made a DVD showing our views. Unfortunately, all our petitions fell on deaf ears. [...] "You seem to have paid no attention to our arguments. Worse than that, you have condemned a full and flourishing church to closure without even visiting it. Even as you decided to demolish our vibrant church to sell the land for development, you were carrying out the very expensive plan to consolidate Leeds Cathedral. It's not the buildings that matter, it's the people".

In another local headline it was explained that several parishes had already been closed in Bradford - another deanery - and three were to be closed in Huddersfield, St James the Great, St Brigid's in Lowergate - whose congregation had just raised a substantial amount of money for its rebuilding, Paddock and St Bernadette's in Bradley - the latter handed over to Catholic Care for use as a community building.

Despite the anger of Huddersfield parishioners, Bishop Roche, undaunted, extended the experiment in 2008 to two new deaneries, Pontefract and Wakefield, where he closed seven more parishes. The parishioners were up in arms, accusing Bishop Roche of breaking canon law and taking a short-term financial view (closing parishes to cut costs, then selling the buildings to fill the diocese whose financial health had been weakened by lavish spending). They called for the intervention of politicians and heritage organisations in order to save their churches from closure. Labour peer Lord Lofthouse offered his support to the parishioners, accusing the bishop of "putting finances before Christian teaching."

Churchgoers chaining themselves to church gates

But the Rochian zeal was still swelling: twelve parishes - one in ten in the diocese, very healthy parishes with up to 200 regular worshippers - were put up for sale. A 'Save our Churches' petition was signed by over 7,000 people, including other bishops, politicians and celebrities. Nationally, the Sunday Telegraph led a press campaign to get the government to intervene.

Parishioners' frustration was growing. The Telegraph explained: "The faithful have called on MPs and heritage bodies to stand with them in defence of their parishes, written [to Rome] to argue that the diocese has neglected its duties as trustees of the churches, and last week provided the bishop with legal documents saying his action breaches canon law. Some of the demonstrators - including women in their 80s - have even chained themselves to church gates to protest against the closures, which they say will devastate local communities. [...] Maureen Walsh, who has been practising at Holy Family Church in Chequerfield for 44 years, said: 'We were upset by this. People were crying last Sunday when they realised we would no longer be able to come here. A Polish priest has offered to take over from the current incumbent, who is due to retire this year, to enable the church to continue, but the offer has been rejected by Bishop Roche. The church has an attendance of about 200 regular worshippers. Anne Dyer, chairman of the governing body of Holy Family and St Michael's Primary School, said the closure of the church will affect everyone in the area, from children to their grandparents. Pupils have sent letters to Bishop Roche asking him to change his mind. [A few miles away, at St John the Evangelist Church in Allerton Bywater, large banners hanging on the outside walls clearly show the congregation's displeasure. "Bishop Roche doesn't care about our sick and elderly," says one. Another says: "He puts money before Christianity". [A letter was sent to the Charity Commission by Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Ackworth, which has nearly 200 members. It said that the diocese "has not acted in the interests of charity and its beneficiaries (parishioners and clergy)".

But Arthur Roche remained deaf. Through his spokesman John Brady: "Bishop Roche has argued that congregations of less than 200 people are no longer viable and that churches are being closed because there are not enough priests to serve the parishes. The number of priests in England and Wales has fallen by almost a quarter in 20 years, from 4,545 in 1985 to 3,643 in 2005," says The Telegraph.

And so, John Brady explained to the press, parishioners' mobilisation would not change any of the decisions taken: "We had an audit, the matter was put to them, and that was that."

As an English parish priest would explain years later in an article on the various experiences of brutal parish closures, and the more numerous mergers, "when a church is closed, particularly where there is a relatively thriving local attendance, the result is only despair, and there is no benefit to those who have lost the place where they, their parents and grandparents were baptised, made their first communion, were married and buried. And most likely their great-grandparents had made extraordinary sacrifices to build said church. It's hard to persuade them that a concrete bunker a few miles away would be a nice place to go to Mass, and that a new secretary at the Charity Office would be a priority resource for the diocese. What should have happened [in Leeds and elsewhere] is that the bishop could have simply removed the parish priest, leaving the parish to do what it could with the buildings. The parishioners could have maintained the place and held Mass as and when they could find a willing priest. There are Lauds and Vespers services, there are devotions: surely this is the time to let the parish function as it did in the past - we have seen this kind of situation in many places in the country. In his autobiography, Archbishop Ullathorne described how, in the early nineteenth century, Catholic parishes in the north of England operated without a priest; there will be litanies, rosaries, a sermon read from a book... but the parish survived. It's by no means ideal, but once you close the church, you lose the people. Almost all of them. But if you close the church, you may have earned enough to hire a secretary to type letters to people who are no longer there.

Bishop Roche continued on his way. In 2010, he informed his faithful in a pastoral letter that half of the parishes in the diocese would be closed irrevocably. And he consoled them: "The Church is not a building; it is you, the living stones that make the face of Christ visible in our society. To which some retorted that he could have closed them all: the Church would have been much more visible...

Parishioners from three churches marched to the bishop's palace and delivered a petition, while some 40 others at St John the Evangelist "chained themselves to the church gates, lit candles and sang hymns", reported the Telegraph.

The toll

Shortly afterwards, Damian Thompson, writing in the Telegraph, summed up this reformist episcopate: "This is the most brutal programme of Catholic parish closures I have ever seen. [Something had to be done, but] having followed the Pontefract Deanery church closure fiasco closely a few years ago [2008], I can't say I trust Bishop Arthur to do the right thing. He is a man who never misses an opportunity to assert his episcopal status - he behaves like a Renaissance prince-bishop - and who has presided over some of the most excessive diocesan spending of any prelate in recent years. [...] The Leeds diocese has funded itself more like an investment bank than a charity. As my source says, "financially, it's OK, as long as you earn more on your investments than the loans cost you. If the market reverses (as it has in the last two years), you're in trouble." Again, I don't dispute that the diocese (like many others in the future) has to close some churches. But would Bishop Arthur [Roche] need to close all those churches now if he hadn't spent so much money on renovating his cathedral and mini-Vatican at Hinsley Hall?"

As a result, Roche was removed from his diocese. Pope Benedict XVI, who was not always happy in his appointments, made him Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship on 26 June 2012.

Once the bishop had left, an audit was conducted by management consultants from the Kinharvie Institute, Glasgow, who concluded that parish reorganisation in the diocese had been poorly managed, leaving "significant levels of disappointment, sadness, hurt and above all anger." The diocese was still £3 million in deficit in 2013, as a result of its submission of accounts to the Charity Commission, the body that monitors the accounts of charities in England and Wales and their use of donations.

With Roche gone, the turnaround could begin. The quiet architect was Bishop John Wilson, another Leeds priest, who later became Auxiliary of the Archdiocese of Westminster and then Archbishop of Southwark.

And then came a fortunate appointment. In September 2014, Bishop Marcus Stock became Bishop of Leeds, According to The Tablet, "the bishop-nominee is among the most able clergymen of his generation. Quietly classical, he is a deeply pastoral man who loves parish ministry ... He is] a man who cherishes people in all their diversity."

What is most interesting is that Bishop Marcus Stock's motto is... Desiderio desideravi.

As for the faithful in Leeds they are determined not to tell their former bishop "Arthur go home!" 

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