He was detained by police and questioned before being released on bail while inquiries continued, plunging the church into fresh scandal.
The man, whom we are not identifying for legal reasons, was arrested last year but the details have only just come to light.
He denies any wrongdoing.
A police spokesman said: “A man was arrested on suspicion of rape on September 18, 2025, following an allegation made to police.
“He has been released on conditional bail as our investigation continues.”
The historical allegation was made by a woman who claimed she was assaulted by the senior church official in his parish in England.
A parishioner said: “It’s very shocking that this man has been arrested on suspicion of such a heinous crime.
“The Catholic Church has been rocked by a number of scandals and this doesn’t help.
“They are trying to keep it quiet but people are shocked.”
The Catholic Church in England and Wales is aware of this new allegation.
In December, Pope Leo chose Richard Moth as the new Archbishop of Westminster, making him England and Wales’s most senior Roman Catholic.
There is no suggestion he is the church leader who was arrested.
For the past ten years, he was the Bishop of Arundel and Brighton and before that served as Bishop of the Forces.
After his appointment, Archbishop Moth said areas of his focus included “social justice”, welfare in prisons and supporting people facing poverty.
Among his challenges are declining numbers of people attending churches — and the misuse of Christian symbols by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
Abuse crisis
A report by Durham University’s Centre for Catholic Studies in October 2024 found a third of Catholics who used to go to mass reduced their attendance or stopped going altogether as a result of the child sexual abuse crisis.
Also in 2024 the Vatican’s child protection commission said church leaders who failed to take action against paedophile priests were a “further source of evil” for victims of sex abuse and should be fired.
The commission was set up by Pope Francis in 2014 to address the problem of sexual abuse scandals involving the church around the world.
This month, Spain’s Roman Catholic Church reached an agreement with the government to compensate hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy.