Arthur Roche

On 29 March 2014 Pope Francis named Roche a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

On 26 June 2012, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Roche Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments CDW and raised him to the rank of archbishop. As Secretary, he has maintained the low profile typical of his curial rank, signing statements and doing press relations in tandem with his superiors, until 2014 Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera and then Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation. He played a larger role when Pope Francis asked him in December 2016 to chair a commission to determine who should have responsibility for translating liturgical texts into the vernacular, apparently because Sarah was not in synch with Francis' views. In September 2017, when Francis released his letter Magnum principium giving regional and national bishops' synods the dominant role and constraining the authority of the CDW, Roche provided the commentary and Sarah played no role.

As the chairman of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, Roche announced that the new translation of the Mass into English was ready. This new translation of the Roman Missal was introduced into Catholic parishes in the United Kingdom in September 2011.

In 2008, his plans to close seven parishes produced protests, especially on the part of a parish in Allerton Bywater that offers a Mass in Latin.

Roche was named Coadjutor Bishop of the Diocese of Leeds on 16 July 2002 and became the ninth Bishop of Leeds when Pope John Paul accepted David Konstant's resignation on 7 April 2004. In July 2002, he was elected chairman of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, which oversees the translation of the Mass into English. The Commission had failed to win Vatican approval of its 1998 translation of the Mass, and Roche's appointment was part of an overhaul to end the stalemate and produce the more literal translation that Rome wanted.

On 12 April 2001, Pope John Paul II named Roche an auxiliary bishop of Westminster and titular bishop of Rusticiana. He received his episcopal consecration on the following 10 May in Westminster Cathedral from Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, with Bishops David Konstant and Victor Guazzelli serving as co-consecrators.

Roche was the diocesan Financial Secretary from 1986 to 1991 and parish priest at St Wilfrid's Church from 1989 to 1991. In 1991, he studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University, earning a Licence in Theology (STL). He then became spiritual director of the Venerable English College. He was appointed General Secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales in April 1996 and given the title of Monsignor.

Roche's first appointment in the diocese was as assistant priest at Holy Rood Church in Barnsley until 1978, when he became private secretary to Bishop William Gordon Wheeler. He was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the diocese in 1979. From 1982 to 1989, he served on the staff of St Anne's Cathedral in Leeds, and helped to organise the visit of Pope John Paul II to York in May 1982.

Arthur Roche was born in Batley Carr, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, to Arthur and Frances Roche. He attended St Joseph's Primary School, St John Fisher High School and Christleton Hall. From 1969 to 1975, he studied at St Alban's College in Valladolid, Spain, where he obtained a degree in theology from the Comillas Pontifical University. Upon his return to England, he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop William Wheeler for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Leeds on 19 July 1975.

Arthur Roche (born 6 March 1950) is an English prelate of the Catholic Church who has been an archbishop and the Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments since 2012. Roche was the ninth Roman Catholic Bishop of Leeds from 2004 to 2012, having served previously as Coadjutor Bishop of Leeds and before that as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Westminster.