Outgoing Delegate Anthony Bailey’s message to the delegation

Having recently remitted my office as Delegate, I wanted to take this opportunity to extend to each of you my good wishes, thoughts and prayers for the New Year 2025.Much like in 2000 when I was appointed to the leadership of the delegation, the Grand Master announced a few days ago from Rome the appointment of Don Paolo Costantino Borghese as the new British and Irish delegate.

This appointment will undoubtedly open a new, and I hope, exciting chapter in the illustrious history of the British and Irish delegation. I have been working with him and the Grand Magistry in Rome on the smooth transfer of my office and I ask that you support him in the vital role he is now empowered to undertake.

Allow me to say what an honour it has been to serve the Grand Master and our delegation in Great Britain and Ireland over some 25 years. Through our team efforts we became a powerful voice for good within the faith communities and wider society.  We created too a valued and sustained role in charitable, humanitarian and inter-religious endeavour at home and abroad.

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all those members who have supported me over the past quarter century. In particular I wish to recall the voluntary service and friendship of the vice-delegates, council members, chaplains and delegation staff who often made the impossible possible.  They ensured too the smooth running of our delegation, its masses and special events.

As a Catholic Order deeply committed to promotion of our faith and to inter-religious understanding, may I thank to our delegation’s spiritual leadership. I recall in a special way the late Grand Prior, Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino and Delegation Prior Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, who together with our current Prior Cardinal Vincent Nichols, our chaplains and other faith leaders play such a vital role within the life of our delegation.

May I ask you too to remember in your prayers our delegation members who have recently died including Vice Delegate John Bruton, Father Paul Chavasse, Vice Delegate Professor Richard Conroy, Teresa Downes, Dr Harold Elletson, Rory Moore O’Farrell, Norman Gooding and Professor Sarah Rogers.

As the year draws to it close, please remember our members who are unwell including Sir Ewan Harper, Father Michael Seed and Cyril Woods Baron of Slane.I much look forward to staying in touch with you.

I very much look forward to staying in contact with you. With every good wish.

Yours confraternally

Anthony Bailey
Knight Grand Cross of Merit, SMCOSG
Knight Grand Cross, Royal Order of Francis I