John
Peter Jabalé was born in Alexandria, Egypt, on 16 October 1933. His
father, a lawyer, was working there at the time, and did so until the
early 1960s, when his parents retired to France. He comes from quite a
cosmopolitan background: his father was part French, and Lebanese; and
his mother part French, British and Greek.
Bishop Mark
did his schooling in Alexandria, in Freibourg in Switzerland and
finally at Belmont Abbey, Herefordshire, where he took his O and
A-Levels. He decided to join the Benedictine monastic community of
Belmont in September 1952, and was clothed in the Benedictine habit on
St Michael’s Day, 29 September, when he took the name in religion of
Mark. After his novitiate, he did his philosophical and theological
studies and was ordained priest in 1958.
He was sent
to Freibourg University, in Switzerland, to study for a licentiate in
French literature. On his return to Britain, he went to St Mary’s
Strawberry Hill, where he did a postgraduate teacher training diploma.
Whilst there, he played rugby for the College and for the Combined
London Colleges of Education. He also swam competitively for them.
He then returned to Belmont, where he started to teach in the school
attached to the monastery. He was made Games Master and coached the
School First XV. He got involved in Schools Representative Rugby, and
was elected secretary, first of the English Schools Rugby 15 Group,
and then the 16 Group. He made many good friends with a great number
of Welsh rugby players and coaches, and during his time a
representative from Newport First XV, who was an old boy of the
school, used to bring a Newport Sunday side to play a game with the
School First XV.
He was made Acting Headmaster of
the school in April 1966, and appointed Headmaster in 1969 until his
retirement from the headship in July 1983. During that time, he
coached the school’s rowing crews, eight of whom rowed for Great
Britain’s Junior Rowing Team in world championships between 1978 and
1983. In 1979 he was given a sabbatical of two terms, during which he
coached the Oxford University Blue Boat for the Boat Race, for a
period of two weeks in the run-up to the boat race. This he did each
year until 1983. In 1979, he was also entrusted with coaching the
lightweight coxless four for Great Britain for the Senior World Rowing
Championship in Bled, Yugoslavia. The crew won the gold medal. He was
Chairman of the National Rowing Championships of Great Britain for
three years, and was elected a steward of Henley Royal Regatta in
1985, sitting on its management committee for nine years. His interest
in rowing is matched by an interest in computers and programming, and
he has written several websites.
In 1983, Father
Mark retired from the headship of Belmont, and was sent to Peru to
build the Monastery of the Incarnation in Sullana, which Belmont was
founding. Already bilingual in French and English, he learnt to speak
Spanish fluently; he has yet to master the Welsh language. He was in
Peru until 1986, when he was appointed Prior of Belmont, a post that
he held for seven years. On 1 September 1993 he was elected Abbot of
Belmont.
On
7 November 2000, the Holy Father nominated Abbot Mark as Coadjutor
Bishop of Menevia, to assist and eventually succeed Bishop Daniel
Mullins. The Diocese of Menevia was originally founded by St David,
and is named after the little settlement of Mynyw, where St David
built his monastery. The modern Diocese, established on 1898 and
restructured in 19 March 1987 with a new cathedral in Swansea, is
roughly similar in size to the ancient foundation, and consists of the
City and County of Swansea, the County Borough of Neath-Port Talbot,
the counties of Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion, and the
districts of Brecknock and Radnor in the County of Powys. Bishop Mark
was ordained by Bishop Mullins in St Joseph's Cathedral, Swansea, on 7
December 2000, the Solemnity of the Dedication of the Cathedral, and
succeeded as Bishop of Menevia on 12 June 2001. He is Chair of the
Department for Christian Life and Worship of the Bishops Conference of
England and Wales.
