Fr Michael Nazir-Ali granted title 'monsignor'

Responding to the announcement, Mgr Nazir-Ali said: “It is very generous of the Holy Father to confer this honour on me which I hardly deserve. Please pray that I will be worthy of it.”

The title formally denotes a member of the papal household, though in most instances this is honorary. All bishops and archbishops may use it.

Mgr Keith Newton, the Ordinary who heads the Ordinariate, praised the appointment as a “deserved honour”.

“Michael has worked for Christian unity throughout his ministry and supported the Ordinariate, albeit from outside it, since its erection in 2011,” he said.

“Over the years he has been in dialogue with the Catholic Church both through the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. So I am delighted that the Holy See has recognised his huge contribution to Christian thinking over many years.”

Mgr Nazir-Ali was one of four former Anglican bishops to become a Catholic in the latter months of 2021. Two of these have since been ordained to the priesthood: Jonathan Goodall, the former Bishop of Ebbsfleet, in the Archdiocese of Westminster, and John Goddard, former Bishop of Burnley, in the Archdiocese of Liverpool.

As an Anglican, Mgr Nazir-Ali was the Bishop of Rochester from 1994 to 2009. He and his wife Valerie have been married since 1972, and has two adult sons.

His marriage precludes him from ordination as a bishop in the Catholic Church, which reserves the episcopacy for celibate men. The Ordinariate does, however, offer episcopal privileges for married former Anglican bishops: despite being married, Mgr Newton, the former Bishop of Richborough, is a full member of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales through his office of Ordinary.

END

Fr Michael Nazir-Ali granted title ‘monsignor’

by Patrick Hudson
The Tablet
April 13, 2022

“It is very generous of the Holy Father to confer this honour on me which I hardly deserve. Please pray that I will be worthy of it.”

Fr Michael Nazir-Ali may now be addressed as “Monsignor”, after Pope Francis granted him the title of “Prelate of Honour to His Holiness” this week.

The former Anglican Bishop of Rochester, who was received into the Catholic Church in September last year, has been a priest in the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham since October.