Peter Hebblethwaite

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Peter Hebblethwaite (September 30, 1930, Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire - December 18, 1994, Oxford), was a British academic and critic.

The son of Charles and Elsie Ann Hebblethwaite, he was a British journalist on Vatican affairs (indeed, he was regarded by many during his lifetime as the leading English-language Vaticanologist) and for some years he was a Jesuit priest. Educated in St Annes, Ashton under Lyne & Manchester where he attended a Salesian-run grammar school, and entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1948, studying in England and France. He was ordained a priest in 1963. Two years later he took over the editorship of the British Jesuit journal The Month, a post he held until leaving the priesthood to marry Margaret Speaight in 1974.

From 1976-9 he taught French at Wadham College, Oxford, earning a reputation as an expert on the work of Catholic writer Georges Bernanos, before launching himself as a freelance journalist, concentrating on Catholic affairs and the Vatican in particular. He was a regular correspondent for the American Catholic weekly National Catholic Reporter, but it was his numerous books which brought him to a wider public.

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. But his two papal biographies sealed his reputation. John XXIII: Pope of the Council appeared in 1984 and Paul VI: The First Modern Pope in 1993.

[edit] Other works

• Bernanos: An introduction (Studies in modern European literature and thought series) (1965)
• Synod Extraordinary: The Inside Story of the Rome Synod, November/December 1985 (1986)
• The Next Pope: 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 (1995)