Monsignor Patrick McKinney was ordained tenth Bishop of Nottingham on Friday 3 July 2015 in St Barnabas’ Cathedral, Nottingham.
The Ordination Mass drew people from across the Diocese of Nottingham, which includes most of the East Midlands, together with civic leaders, representatives of other Christian churches, priests, deacons and religious sisters from the Diocese of Nottingham and the Archdiocese of Birmingham, where Bishop McKinney worked as a priest before his appointment as Bishop of Nottingham.
At the beginning of the Mass, which was attended by Sir John Peace, the Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, the Lord Mayor of Nottingham, Councillor Jackie Morris, and the Chairman of Nottinghamshire County Council, Councillor Sybil Fielding, a minute’s silence was held in memory of the victims of the recent terrorist atrocities in Tunisia.
Bishop McKinney was ordained by Cardinal Vincent, assisted by the Most Rev Malcolm McMahon OP, Archbishop of Liverpool and Bishop McKinney’s predecessor as Bishop of Nottingham, and the Most Rev Bernard Longley, Archbishop of Birmingham. Also present were His Excellency Antonio Mennini, the Apostolic Nuncio in Great Britain, Bishops from across England and Wales, and members of Bishop McKinney’s family.
In his homily, Cardinal Nichols spoke of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, ‘which is much needed in our troubled world’:
It calls us to proclaim fundamental values which have to be found at the heart of the kind of society to which we all aspire. These are the values, the principles, of a transcendental humanism. They both underpin and reach beyond the pragmatic values of today and rest on a hope that we of ourselves cannot fulfil. Jesus is the vision of this humanism for he is the one human being who has reached fulfilment and who makes that fulfilment attainable for every person. In the face of all the threats we face, this is our salvation. The forgiveness shown by the Christians of Charleston, Alabama, robs terrorism of its power. The mercy of Christian humanism, a mercy to be shown to all, shows up the darkness of ideologies of death and why they are to be rejected by all who believe in the mystery of God at the heart of life. These are difficult days, yet our message of mercy and of eternal life, and our witness to them, has never been more relevant.
The full text of Cardinal Vincent's homily can be read here.
