Archbishop a true city leader; LIVERPOOL DAILY POST.

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WHEN the Most Rev Patrick Kelly was installed as Archbishop of Liver pool 13 years ago, he would have been the first to admit that he had a hard act to follow.

His predecessor, Derek Worlock, had built up a following that went far beyond the Catholic church. Working with his Anglican counterpart David Sheppard, he had provided spiritual succour and moral leadership through some of Liverpool's darkest times, the Toxteth riots, the stadium disasters at Heysel and Hillsborough, times of mass unemployment.

But the fact that churchmen of all denominations will join Archbishop Kelly this evening to celebrate his 25 years as a bishop tells its own tale. So, too, does the fact that the service this evening is open to all. No tickets, no r eservations - just a celebration of the career of a man who has made the post of Archbishop of Liverpool very much his own in the last few years.

His has been an unshowy style, but one that has won over many admirers.

Coming as he does from a mixed family - his mother converted from the Church of England - there is no question that he knows Anglicanism through and through, and has been effective as an ambassador and a communicator and a for mer member of ARCIC, the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission.

He has been a quiet and respected voice in Israel and Palestine, too, the representative of the Bishops' Conference on the International Coordination of the Roman Catholic Church for the Holy Land.

And, amid all this, he has been a voice for Liverpool in national and international church affairs. Long may he continue..