Graham Leonard

Graham Douglas Leonard KCVO (8 May 1921 – 6 January 2010Daily Telegraph issue number 48,085 (dated 7 January 2010) Obituary p31 Bishop of London who became the most senior Anglican defector to Rome since the Reformation) was a British cleric. He was formerly a bishop of the Church of England (Anglican) but became a Roman Catholic after his retirement.
==Early life==
Leonard was educated at Monkton Combe School and Balliol College, Oxford. He was commissioned into the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry during the Second World War, Who's Who, 1987, page 1071 before attending Westcott House, Cambridge. He was ordained deacon in 1947 and priest the following year.
==Early ministry==
Before becoming the Bishop of Willesden he was the Rector of St Andrew Undershaft with St Mary Axe in the City of London and the Archdeacon of Hampstead. He was appointed the Bishop of Willesden in 1964.
==Bishop==
Leonard had three episcopal positions in the Church of England, firstly as the Suffragan Bishop of Willesden in the Diocese of London and later as the Bishop of Truro (1973 to 1981) and the Bishop of London (1981 to 1991). During this last period he was Dean of the Chapel Royal, a Royal Household office, for which he was appointed Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO). He was also Prelate of the Order of the British Empire.
==Ordination in the Roman Catholic Church==
An outspoken critic of moves to ordain women to the priesthood within the Anglican Communion, after his retirement Leonard eventually left the Church of England to become a Roman Catholic. On 23 April 1994 he was conditionally ordained as a priest (but not as a bishop) in the Roman Catholic Church. Although the Roman Catholic Church still does not officially recognise the validity of Anglican ordinations, Leonard's ordination was conditional due to there being "prudent doubt" about the invalidity of his previous ordination in the Church of England.Statement of Cardinal Hume on the ordination of Anglican bishop Graham Leonard as a Roman Catholic priest Leonard claimed that he was not firstly also ordained a deacon and has said that the Pope's personal instruction was that he should be ordained immediately to the priesthood 'sub conditione'. He was later appointed a papal chaplain with the title Monsignor and then a prelate of honour by Pope John Paul II on 3 August 2000.
==Family==
Leonard was the brother-in-law to the late academic Michael Swann (Lord Swann of Coln St Denys) and Hugh Swann, cabinet maker to Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, having married their sister, Priscilla Swann. He and his wife had two sons.
==References==
==External links==
*Former Anglican Bishop of London explains why he became a Catholic
*Bishops of Truro photo gallery
*The Rt Rev Mgr Graham Leonard – Daily Telegraph obituary
*Monsignor Graham Leonard - Guardian obituary
Category:Bishops of Willesden
Category:Bishops of Truro
Category:Bishops of London
Category:Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Category:English Roman Catholic priests
Category:Knights Commander of the Royal Victorian Order
Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism
Category:Converts to Catholicism from Anglicanism
Category:Anglo-Catholic bishops
Category:Old Monktonians
Category:English Roman Catholics
Category:1921 births
Category:2010 deaths
Category:Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry officers
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