Peter Hebblethwaite

Peter Hebblethwaite (30 September 1930 – 18 December 1994) was a British Jesuit priest and writer.

After leaving the priesthood, he became an editor, journalist ('Vaticanologist') and biographer.

Hebblethwaite was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, the son of Charles and Elsie Ann Hebblethwaite.

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

Hebblethwaite entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1948, and later studied in England and France.

He was ordained a priest in 1963.

Two years later he joined the staff of the Jesuit magazine The Month, covering the final session of the Second Vatican Council.

In 1967 he was appointed editor of The Month, a post he held until leaving the priesthood to marry Margaret Speaight (born 1951, London), a British writer, journalist, activist and religious worker.

The couple wed in 1974 and had three children.

The Runaway Church (1975) looked at the changes in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council.

From 1976 to 1979, he taught French at Wadham College, Oxford, specialising in the work of Catholic writer Georges Bernanos, before launching himself as a freelance journalist, concentrating on Catholic affairs and the Vatican in particular.

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.

He was the Vatican correspondent for the American liberal Catholic weekly National Catholic Reporter from 1979 to 1981.

He was a journalist on Vatican affairs (regarded by some during his lifetime as the leading English-language Vaticanologist).

Hebblethwaite gained esteem as an author whose style was calm, scholarly and witty.

His numerous books introduced him to a wider public.

Peter Hebblethwaite died in Oxford on 18 December 1994, aged 64.