Joseph Toal

Who is Joseph Toal?

Joseph Anthony Toal is the Roman Catholic Bishop of Argyll and the Isles in Scotland.

On 29 April 2014 he was named by Pope Francis as the fifth Bishop of Motherwell.

Born in Roy Bridge, Inverness-shire, Scotland on 13 October 1956, he was ordained a priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Argyll and the Isles at St Columba's Cathedral in Oban on 10 July 1980.

After ordination he served in Daliburgh and Ardkenneth on South Uist, Campbeltown and Benbecula before being appointed spiritual director at the Royal Scots College in Salamanca, Spain, in 1999. He was then vice rector before becoming rector of the College.

Toal was appointed bishop of the Diocese of Argyll and the Isles by the Holy See on 16 October 2008 and consecrated to the episcopate on 8 December 2008. The principal consecrator was Cardinal Keith O'Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh. The principal co-consecrators were Archbishop Faustino Sainz Muñoz, Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain and Bishop Ian Murray, Bishop Emeritus of Argyll and the Isles.