Parishioners across the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle are praying for Bishop Kevin Dunn, who is very seriously ill in hospital. Over the weekend, his condition deteriorated, a diocesan spokesman said.Canon Seamus Cunningham, vicar general of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, told the Sunderland Echo: "Bishop Kevin was admitted to hospital on Tuesday, February 5, and then on Friday, February 8, was transferred to intensive care with pneumonia. He is responding to treatment and the priests and people of the diocese are being asked to remember him in their prayers."
Father Bill O'Gorman, of St Michael's Church in Houghton, said: "We are very sad. The diocese is shocked to hear that he's critically ill. He's a wonderful bishop. He's been in the diocese since May 2004, coming up to four years, and has made his mark already. Every day we have prayers for him. We would wish him a speedy and full recovery."
Bishop Kevin, 57, was ordained as the 12th Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle in May 2004 by bishop Ambrose Griffiths.
Born in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, he studied for the priesthood at Oscott College in Birmingham and was ordained at Our Lady and St Werbergh's Church in Clayton, Newcastle-under-Lyme in 1976. Since then, he has worked mainly across the West Midlands. He studied at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas in Rome and was awarded a doctorate in Canon Law in 1991.
In 2001, he was appointed full-time episcopal vicar for Wolverhampton, Walsall, the Black Country and Worcester. In 2002, he became a Canon of the Metropolitan Chapter of St Chad and a member of the Episcopal Council in the Archdiocese of Birmingham.
A message on the Hexham and Newcastle diocesan website site says: "He is being remembered and supported in prayer by so many people at this time, both in the diocese and beyond. We ask that you continue to keep him and his family and the whole of the diocese in your prayers at this time.
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