Thomas Burns (bishop)

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**The Rt Rev Thomas Matthew Burns**
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Denomination	Roman Catholic Church
Senior posting
See	Bishopric of the Forces
Title	Roman Catholic Bishop of the Forces
Period in office	May 24, 2002 — present
Successor	incumbent
Personal
Date of birth	June 3, 1944
Place of birth	Belfast, Northern Ireland

Styles of
Thomas Matthew Burns

Reference style	The Right Reverend
Spoken style	Your Excellency
Religious style	Bishop
Posthumous style	not applicable

Thomas Matthew Burns, SM, (born June 3, 1944) is an English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He currently serves as Roman Catholic Bishop of the Forces, and as such, acts as the leading Catholic chaplain in the British Armed Forces.

[edit] Biography

He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, but his family later moved to Lancashire in England. After studying at St. Mary's College, Blackburn, the Sixth Form in Exeter, and a monastery in Paignton, Burns was ordained to the priesthood on 16 December 1971, for the Society of Mary.

He then did pastoral work, taught economics in Sidcup and Blackburn, and served as a chaplain in the Royal Navy. Burns left the Royal Navy in 1992 and became Bursar General of the Marists' Headquarters in Rome, but returned to the Navy in 1994.

On 24 May 2002, he was appointed to head the military ordinariate of Great Britain, the Bishopric of the Forces. He received his episcopal consecration on the following 18 June from Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, with Bishop Francis Walmsley and Archbishop Patrick Kelly serving as co-consecrators.

Burns has been a vociferous critic of the Ministry of Defence, complaining that troops in Iraq were "frustrated by restrictions, checks and delays that are placed on them but not on their opponents", and that their "activities are often jeopardised by poor equipment, outmoded vehicles and inadequate apparel" ([1]).