A Liverpool priest has described how he saw his life was flashing before his eyes like “a drowning man” the moment he was told that Pope Francis wanted to appoint him as an auxiliary bishop of his home diocese.
Canon Thomas Neylon said that although he was summoned to London see Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, the Papal Nuncio, he remained unaware of the Pope’s intention to invite him to become the next Bishop of Liverpool.
Speaking to the Catholic Herald a week before his ordination in the city’s Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, Bishop-elect Neylon said the proposal left him “a bit stunned”.
