Arthur Roche (born 6 March 1950) is a British cardinal of the Catholic Church who has served as prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments since 2021.
Roche's first appointment in the diocese was as assistant priest at Holy Rood Church in Barnsley until 1978, when he became private secretary to Bishop William Gordon Wheeler.
From 1982 to 1989, he served on the staff of St Anne's Cathedral in Leeds, and helped to organise the visit of Pope John Paul II to York in May 1982.
[1][2] He received his episcopal consecration on the following 10 May in Westminster Cathedral from Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, with Bishops David Konstant and Victor Guazzelli serving as co-consecrators.
[13] On 26 June 2012, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Roche Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (CDW) and raised him to the rank of archbishop.
"[17] Pope Francis asked him, in December 2016, to chair an informal commission to determine who should have responsibility for translating liturgical texts into the vernacular.
[21][22] On 29 July 2019, Pope Francis named him a member of the group that reviews appeals of convictions for delicta graviora, the gravest crimes dealt with by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
[28][29] A few months into Roche's tenure as prefect, Pope Francis issued the motu propio, Traditionis Custodes, which significantly restricted the celebration of the Tridentine Mass of the Roman Rite.
[32][33][34] Cardinal Roche added authorizing the traditional Latin mass in parishes to a very small list of decisions previously reserved to the Holy See.
In a letter to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, Roche claimed that Pope Paul VI had "abrogated" the Old Rite.
Roche's assessment seemed to contradict Pope Benedict XVI's assertion in his 2007 Motu Propio, Summorum Pontificum, that the Old Rite had never been abrogated.