Michael Bell was born in Edinburgh in 1927.He was educated at Holy Cross Academy Edinburgh and Campion House Osterley. He was ordained in Edinburgh in 1961.

Fr Bell is a member of the Society of Saint Sulpice a Catholic Society of Apostolic Life founded in Paris and named after St. Sulpitius the Pious. Priests become members of the Society of St. Sulpice only after ordination. Uniquely for a Catholic Order they retain incardination in their own dioceses even after joining the society. The purpose of the society is mainly the education of priests and to some extent parish work. As their main role is the education of those preparing to become members of the presbyterate, Sulpicians place great emphasis on the academic and spiritual formation of their own members, who commit themelves to undergoing lifelong academic and spiritual development.

After his ordination in 1961 Fr Bell's first parish was St Patrick's Kilsyth where he served for 11 years from 1961 to 1972 as assistant Priest to Canon Thomas McGarvie the Parish Priest of St Patrick's at that time.

In 1972 upon the arrival of Fr O'Connell and Fr O'Brien into St Patrick's, Fr Bell moved to become the Parish Priest of Blanefield where he was to stay until 1985. In 1985 he was to move to what was to become his final Parish in Scotland that of St Catherine's in Edinburgh where he was to remain until 1989.

In 1989 Fr Bell moved to the United States where he remains today having retired from his role there amongst other things as a prison Chaplin in California.