Archbishop of Birmingham

The Archbishop of Birmingham heads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham in England. As such he is the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Province of Birmingham.

The archdiocese covers an area of 8,735 km² of the Counties of Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, West Midlands, Warwickshire and Worcestershire. The Archbishop's see in the City of Birmingham where his cathedra or seat is located at the Metropolitan Cathedral Church of Saint Chad.

With the gradual abolition of the legal restrictions on the activities of Catholics in England and Wales in the early 19th century, Rome decided to proceed to bridge the gap of the centuries from Queen Elizabeth I by instituting Catholic dioceses on the regular historical pattern. Thus Pope Pius IX issued the Bull "Universalis Ecclesiae" of 29 September 1850 by which thirteen new dioceses which did not formally claim any continuity with the pre-Elizabethan English dioceses were created.

One of these was the diocese of Birmingham. This has its origins in the Vicariates Apostolic of England, of the Midland District and lastly of the Central District. The last Vicar Apostolic of the Central District, from 28 July 1848, was Bishop William Bernard Ullathorne, O.S.B., who on 29 September 1850 became the first Bishop of Birmingham.

In the early period from 1850 the diocese was a suffragan of the Metropolitan See of Westminster, but a further development was the creation under Pope Pius X, on 28 October 1911, of a new Province of Birmingham.

The current archbishop is His Grace the Most Reverend Vincent Gerard Nichols, the 9th Bishop and 8th Metropolitan Archbishop of Birmingham, who was installed on 29 March 2000.

List of the Catholic Bishops and Archbishops of Birmingham

See also

*Lists of incumbents