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Pope Leo XIV appointed Fr Stephen Wang as the new Bishop of Arundel & Brighton on Thursday 2 July 2026. Bishop-elect Stephen will be installed as the sixth Bishop of our Diocese at the Cathedral of Our Lady and St Philip Howard, Arundel, on Monday 19 October, the Feast of St Philip Howard.

People across our diocesan family of faith are preparing to welcome a new shepherd, with the Mass of Episcopal Ordination livestreamed from Arundel Cathedral. In a message recorded shortly before the Mass, Fr Stephen reflected on the last few weeks, sharing his experience of a "Baby Bishop" school in Rome, a recent retreat with sisters in the Verbum Dei community on the Isle of Wight, and the significance of the chasuble he will wear on Monday:

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I've had some really wonderful experiences over the summer and I hope and I trust that they have helped me to get ready for this wonderful day of my ordination as a new bishop, which is coming very soon now.

Just before I left Rome, where I've been working for the last five years, I went to a course for new bishops in the Vatican in Rome. It's often called the “Baby Bishops’ course. There were 153 people on the course, which just by a wonderful coincidence is the same number of fish that Peter caught in his net just after the Resurrection of Jesus.

There we were, 150 bishops who'd been ordained already, and three of us, myself and two others, who were still waiting for our ordination. We had some great talks from cardinals and bishops who work in the Vatican, some really profound and practical advice and the best thing probably was meeting the other people on the course. This is the time when we could just share with one another and learn from each other's experiences and there were people from every single continent and nearly every country in the world. It was lovely to be with these men and share and understand what's going on in their lives and in their churches and to learn from them and to be encouraged by them.

Then, when I got back to England, I moved into my new home on the edge of Crawley. The very first thing I did after moving in was to go and visit our wonderful cathedral in Arundel. I hadn't been in it before - I'd been to visit the sisters in Arundel years ago, but I didn't have time to go to the cathedral.

It was a Wednesday late afternoon in the summer; the sun was coming in at this beautiful golden angle, this golden hour, and it was breathtaking to walk into our cathedral. The beauty of the place, the symbols, the light, the stained glass, the statues, a real sense of prayerfulness and devotion in what is our Mother Church. It's a home for all of us who live here and pray and worship within the Diocese.

On the left, as many of you know, is the shrine of St Philip Howard, and opposite facing him, St Philip Neri, that wonderful statue, it is as if they are praying with each other and talking to one another. I love the symbolism, having a layman and a priest, a member of the clergy, a religious, to show symbolically that all of us, lay people, clergy, religious, consecrated, are all part of the church, part of the diocesan family, working and praying together.

Most recently I've been away to the Isle of Wight on retreat. This is a big part of preparing for your ordination as a bishop. I had seven days staying with some sisters in the Verbum Dei community near to Carisbrook Castle where I'd been many times on retreat.

I spent most of the time going for long, beautiful countryside walks, talking to the Lord and reading the passages of the gospels that are about the apostles. Just thinking, isn't it mysterious and wonderful that God gives us in the bishops people who will follow in the footsteps of the apostles and continue their ministry.

It was a little bit daunting and exciting, but it was very encouraging to see the humanity of St Peter and Andrew and James and John and the Twelve and of St Paul as well, learning about the gifts that the Lord had given them but also their own humanity, their own weakness and brokenness and that it wasn't them doing this on their own, it was them taking on this ministry under obedience to the Lord with his help and with the help of one another and the whole Church.

I was inspired and I was encouraged, and the moments when I felt a little bit nervous or helpless, I kept coming back to the apostles and how the Lord sustained them, and I'm praying that with God's help and with yours, he will help me to step into this new ministry as well and teach me what it means to follow in the footsteps of the apostles for the sake of the Church today.

So, I have had lots of different experiences and I feel, I won't say 100% prepared, but I'm certainly really excited that the day of my ordination is coming and is very close now. It's been quite a long time since I got the news, just over three months now - I'm looking forward to being in the cathedral.

Some of you will be there, many of you won't be there, but I know that we'll have a chance to meet in the next weeks and months. I know it's going to be a very, very prayerful, beautiful day; the different symbols, the different prayers, the music, the scripture readings, the people, all the memories for me from my time growing up as a Christian from my ordination as a priest and all that's happened since then, there is so much for me to be grateful for and to look forward to.

One very special thing for me is that I'm going to be ordained wearing the same chasuble, the main priest's cloak, that I wore for my priestly ordination nearly 28 years ago - it's a chasuble that was painted by my mother, Elizabeth who was an artist.

When you see it, you'll see that the whole of the front and the back was painted by my mum with lots of images of Jesus and of people at prayer, and passages from the gospel and from the sacraments - to bring alive the Christian faith in the beauty of this artwork. It speaks to me a lot about the day itself and about our vocation.

I think that in this wonderful, beautiful chasuble and the images on it, you see something of the beauty of Christ and of the beauty of the Christian life when it's lived. And I hope that this will speak to me, to those who are there at the ordination and to anyone else who can see this beautiful image, because fundamentally this is what our life is about as Christians, isn't it? It's coming to know the love and the beauty and the goodness of Jesus, the goodness and the help and the support of the Church, and praying then that the beauty of Christ can reflect in our own lives and touch the lives of others.

I've been praying so much over these last few weeks and months, especially on my retreat, for the people of the Diocese and the mission of the Diocese.

I am praying for you andI ask you please to pray for me, to pray for my needs at this very special and beautiful time. But above all to pray for the Diocese and for the mission of the Diocese. God has blessed us so much and we have so much to share with others. And I pray that you and I, together on this wonderful journey, can stay close to Christ and we can share the good news with everyone that we meet.

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People across our family of faith are invited to watch the Mass by livestream, to download our "New Shepherd" livestream guide, click on the button below. Please note that this transcript has been edited for clarity.

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