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Rt Rev Dom John Mark Jabalé, OSB, L es L
Bishop of Menevia


Rt Rev Dom John Mark Jabelé, OSB, L es L
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.
 

 


 

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