Gerard Tickle

Styles of Gerard Tickle
Reference style	The Right Reverend
Spoken style	My Lord
Religious style	Bishop

Gerard William Tickle (2 November 1909 – 14 September 1994) was an English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as the Bishop of the Forces from 1963 to 1978.^[1]

Born in Birkenhead in 1909, he was ordained to the priesthood on 28 October 1934. He served as Vice-Rector of the English College, Rome 1946-52 and Rector 1952-63.^[2] He was appointed the Bishop of the Forces and Titular Bishop of Bela by the Holy See on 12 October 1963. His consecration to the Episcopate took place on 1 December 1963, the principal consecrator was Cardinal William Theodore Heard, and the principal co-consecrators were Cardinal John Carmel Heenan and Bishop William Eric Grasar. He participated in the third and fourth sessions of the Second Vatican Council, held in 1964 and 1965.^[1]

Bishop Tickle was the target of an assassination attempt by an Irish republican bomber, Shane Paul O'Doherty, after, O'Doherty later claimed, he had read "... a newspaper story quoting Tickle as saying British soldiers did nothing wrong on Bloody Sunday. The bomb, stuffed into a hollowed-out Bible, failed to detonate."^[3][4]

Tickle resigned as Bishop of the Forces on 24 April 1978, at age 68, but continued as Titular Bishop of Bela until his death on 14 September 1994, aged 84.^[1]

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