Peter Hebblethwaite was a British priest, editor, journalist and biographer.

Life

The son of Charles and Elsie Ann Hebblethwaite, he was a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 journalist on Vatican

Holy See

The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...

 affairs (regarded by some during his lifetime as the leading English-language Vaticanologist

Vaticanologist

Vaticanologist or Vaticanist is a term coined in the mid-to-late twentieth century to describe journalists, academics and commentators whose area of expertise is in studying and understanding the manner by which the Holy See and the Roman Catholic Church operates...

) and for some years he was a Jesuit priest.

He was educated at the parish primary school of St Anne's, Ashton-under-Lyne, and Xaverian College

Xaverian College

Xaverian Roman Catholic Sixth form College is a College in the city of Manchester.-Admissions:It lies in the inner city suburb of Rusholme close to Wilmslow Road and Oxford Road...

, Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, a Catholic grammar school. He entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1948, and later studied in studying in England and France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. He was ordained a priest in 1963. Two years later he joined the staff of the Jesuit magazine The Month

The Month

The Month was a monthly review, published from 1864 to 2001, which for almost all of its history was owned by the English Province of the Society of Jesus and edited by its members.-History:...

, covering the final session of the Second Vatican Council

Second Vatican Council

The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...

.

In 1967 he was appointed editor, a post he held until leaving the priesthood to marry Margaret Speaight

Margaret Hebblethwaite

Margaret Speaight Hebblethwaite is a British writer, journalist, activist and religious worker.She read read theology and philosophy at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, and at the Gregorian University in Rome....

 (born 1951, London) in 1974. The couple had three children.

From 1976 to 1979 he got a job teaching French at Wadham College, Oxford

Wadham College, Oxford

Wadham College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, located at the southern end of Parks Road in central Oxford. It was founded by Nicholas and Dorothy Wadham, wealthy Somerset landowners, during the reign of King James I...

, specializing in the work of Catholic writer Georges Bernanos

Georges Bernanos

Georges Bernanos was a French author, and a soldier in World War I. Of Roman Catholic and monarchist leanings, he was a violent adversary to bourgeois thought and to what he identified as defeatism leading to France's defeat in 1940.-Biography:Bernanos was born at Paris, into a family of...

, before launching himself as a freelance journalist, concentrating on Catholic affairs and the Vatican in particular. He was the Vatican correspondent for the American liberal Catholic weekly National Catholic Reporter

National Catholic Reporter

The National Catholic Reporter is the second largest Catholic newspaper in the United States; its circulation reaches ninety-seven countries on six continents. Based in midtown Kansas City, Missouri, NCR was founded by Robert Hoyt in 1964 as an independent newspaper focusing on the Catholic Church...

from 1979 to 1981, but it was his numerous books which brought him to a wider public, though not universal approval. The Runaway Church (1975) looked at the changes in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council. The Year of Three Popes covered the dramatic papal events of 1978, and was later followed by two papal biographies: John XXIII: Pope of the Council appeared in 1984 and Paul VI: The First Modern Pope in 1993.

Books

• Bernanos: An introduction (Studies in modern European literature and thought series) (1965)
• Understanding the Synod. Dublin and Sydney: Gill & Son, 1968.
• The Runaway Church. London: Collins, 1975. ISBN 0-00-211648-0
• The Christian-Marxist Dialogue: beginnings, present status, and beyond. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1977. ISBN 0-232-51390-2
• The Year of Three Popes. London: Collins, 1978. ISBN 0-00-215047-6
• with Ludwig Kaufmann, John Paul II: A Pictorial Biography. New York: McGraw-Hill, c1979. ISBN 0-07-033327-0 (hbk.), ISBN 0-07-033328-9 (pbk.)
• The New Inquisition? Schillebeeckx and Küng. London: Fount Paperbacks, 1980. ISBN 0-00-626106-X
• The Papal Year. London: Chapman, 1981. ISBN 0-225-66297-3
• Introducing John Paul II: The Populist Pope. London: Collins / Fount, 1982. ISBN 0-00-626346-1
• John XXIII: Pope of the Council. London: Chapman, 1984. ISBN 0-225-66419-4 Revised edition Fount Paperbacks, 1994. Abridged edition Continuum, 2000.
• Synod Extraordinary: The Inside Story of the Rome Synod November-December 1985. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1986. ISBN 0-232-51665-0
• In the Vatican. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1986. ISBN 0-283-99324-3
• Paul VI: The First Modern Pope. London: HarperCollins, 1993. ISBN 0-00-215658-X
• The Next Pope: An Enquiry. London: Fount, 1995. ISBN 0-00-627831-0 (reissued in 2000 with the subtitle "A Behind-The-Scenes Look at the Forces That Will Choose the Successor to John Paul II and Decide the Future of the Catholic Church". ISBN 0-00-628160-5)

Pamphlets

• Changes in the Church?. London: Catholic Truth Society
  Catholic Truth Society
  Catholic Truth Society is a body that prints and publishes Catholic literature, including apologetics but also prayerbooks, spiritual reading, lives of saints and so forth...
  
  , 1967.
• What the Council Says about Cultural Values. London: Catholic Truth Society, 1968.
• The Theology of the Church. Theology Today no. 8. Notre Dame, Ind.: Fides Publishers, 1969.
• Some Aspects of Revisionist Thinking. Boston College Studies in Philosophy 2. Boston: Boston College, 1969.
• Pope John Paul II, the Gulf War and the Catholic tradition. Oxford Project for Peace Studies paper no.31. Oxford: Oxford Project for Peace Studies, 1992. ISBN 1-871191-31-9

Translations

• Ladislaus Boros, Breaking Through to God: The Way of the Cross. London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1973. (from German) ISBN 0-232-51222-1
• Pierre de Calan, Cosmas, or, The Love of God. London: Collins, 1980. (from French) ISBN 0-00-222118-7

Obituaries

• The Times, Dec. 19, 1994.
• The Guardian, Dec. 19, 1994.
• The Daily Telegraph, Dec. 19, 1994.