Malcolm Patrick McMahon, OP, KC*HS (born 14 June 1949) is an English Catholic prelate who served as Metropolitan Archbishop of Liverpool from 2014 to 2025. He was Bishop of Nottingham from 2000 to 2014. He is a member of the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers (, abbreviated OP), commonly known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic Church, Catholic mendicant order of pontifical right that was founded in France by a Castilians, Castilian priest named Saint Dominic, Dominic de Gu ...

Early life and ministry

Malcolm McMahon was born in London, the second of three brothers and studied mechanical engineering at the

University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) was a university based in the centre of the city of Manchester in England. It specialised in technical and scientific subjects and was a major centre for Research univer ...

before working for London Transport. In 1976, he decided upon an ecclesiastical career and joined the

. Making his religious profession in December 1977, McMahon studied philosophy at Blackfriars, Oxford and theology at

Heythrop College Heythrop College, University of London, was a constituent college of the University of London between 1971 and 2018, last located in Kensington Square, London. It comprised the university's specialist faculties of philosophy and theology with soc ...

. He was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are Consecration in Christianity, consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the religious denomination, denominationa ...

to the priesthood by Cardinal Basil Hume on 26 June 1982. He served as chaplain of Leicester Polytechnic for the 1986/7 academic year, whence he served in a London

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

. McMahon later became

Parish Priest A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

of St Dominic's in

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle ( , Received Pronunciation, RP: ), is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is England's northernmost metropolitan borough, located o ...

(1989), and of St Dominic's in Haverstock Hill (1990). He was elected

prior The term prior may refer to: * Prior (ecclesiastical), the head of a priory (monastery) * Prior convictions, the life history and previous convictions of a suspect or defendant in a criminal case * Prior probability, in Bayesian statistics * Prio ...

provincial of the Dominicans' English Province in both 1992 and 1996. In 2000, he was elected prior of Blackfriars, Oxford.

Episcopal career

Bishop of Nottingham

On 7 November 2000, McMahon was appointed Bishop of Nottingham by

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

. He received his episcopal consecration on the following 8 December from Bishop James Joseph McGuinness, with Bishops Victor Guazzelli and Patrick O'Donoghue serving as

co-consecrators A consecrator is a bishop who ordains someone to the episcopacy. A co-consecrator is someone who assists the consecrator bishop in the act of ordaining a new bishop. The terms are used in the canon law of the Catholic Church, Lutheran Churche ...

, in the Cathedral Church of St. Barnabas. McMahon's name had been mentioned as a possible successor to Cormac Murphy-O'Connor as Archbishop of Westminster and to Kevin McDonald as Archbishop of Southwark. He serves as Chair of the Department of Education and Formation of the

Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW) is the episcopal conference of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. Overview The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales is the permanent assembly of Catholic Bishop ...

, Chair of the

Catholic Education Service The Catholic Education Service (CES) is an agency of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW), whose object is the advancement of the Christian religion, primarily through education. History The CES has its roots in the ...

, Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Catholic Trust of England & Wales, Ecclesiastical Advisor to the Knights of Saint Columba, and President of the British Section of Pax Christi, the international Catholic peace movement.

Archbishop of Liverpool

On 21 March 2014

Pope Francis Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 13 March 2013 until Death and funeral of Pope Francis, his death in 2025. He was the fi ...

appointed Bishop McMahon as the ninth Archbishop of the Metropolitan See of Liverpool. Archbishop McMahon was enthroned at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King on 1 May 2014, the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker, before a congregation of three thousand. During his tenure in Liverpool, in 2017 and 2018, Archbishop McMahon ordained priests for the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter in St Mary's Church, Warrington, utilising the pre-1970 rite of ordination. Pope Francis accepted Archbishop McMahon's resignation on 5 April 2025.

Views

Archbishop McMahon has said that there is no doctrinal reason preventing priests from having wives: He considers clerical celibacy as a "spiritual necessity". In a pastoral letter read in the Diocese of Nottingham on Sunday 25 October 2009, then Bishop McMahon said: He also supports the role of women in Catholic Church, but is against the ordination of women as priests: In the same pastoral letter, Bishop McMahon said: In April 2010, Bishop McMahon appeared on the BBC's ''Hard Talk'' to discuss the Church's response to the sexual abuse of children. He defended the work of the Holy See and the Church in England and Wales on this and expressed the hope that the Vatican would become more open and transparent in its treatment of victims and perpetrators.

Personal info

In his free time, the Archbishop enjoys playing golf and listening to live music and opera but also admits to being a fan of Norah Jones.

Portrait

On 21 March 2017, Hardman Portrait published a portrait of McMahon to be displayed to the public in the

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, officially known as the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King and locally nicknamed "Paddy's Wigwam", is the cathedral, seat of the Archbishop of Liverpool and the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdi ...

Crypt. He is depicted in choir dress, mirroring the black and white portrait of his predecessor Archbishop Richard Downey. The portrait is one of a series of works depicting current members of Liverpool society alongside their predecessors.

References

External links

*
Archdiocese of LiverpoolDiocese of Nottingham
{{DEFAULTSORT:McMahon, Malcolm Patrick 1949 births Living people Alumni of Blackfriars, Oxford Alumni of Heythrop College Alumni of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology Roman Catholic archbishops of Liverpool Dominican bishops Roman Catholic clergy from London English Dominicans English mechanical engineers Roman Catholic bishops of Nottingham People associated with De Montfort University 21st-century Roman Catholic archbishops in the United Kingdom British Roman Catholic archbishops English Roman Catholic archbishops