On December 19, 2025, more than five years after Cardinal Vincent Nichols offered his resignation to Pope Francis upon turning 75, Pope Leo appointed Bishop Richard Moth, Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, to take over as Archbishop of Westminster, the Ordinary of England’s most important see, and by custom the President of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.
Ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Southwark on June 3, 1982, after studying at the now closed St John’s Seminary, Wonersh, he has almost 45 years of experience in the priesthood. His first appointment was as curate at St Bede’s, Clapham Park, a church which has in recent years become a beacon of revival, with an average parishioner age just of 22. He was then sent to Ottawa, where he studied for a Licentiate and then a Master’s in canon law before returning to be curate at St Saviour’s, Lewisham. It was at this time that he had his first experience of military chaplaincy, becoming a Territorial Army chaplain and then being commissioned in the Royal Army Chaplains’ Department as Chaplain to the Forces 4th Class.
