Fr. John Hepworth, 1944-2021: Former TAC Primate, Ordinariate Visionary, Reunited to Catholic Church

Father John Hepworth, the former Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), passed away Dec. 1, in Adelaide, reconciled to the Catholic Church he loved and also recognized as a Catholic priest in good standing.

Hepworth is considered a hero and a visionary by those from the various component churches of the TAC who shared his desire for unity with Rome and who entered the communion of the Catholic Church by way of the Personal Ordinariates Pope Benedict XVI established for the Anglican tradition. In Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, former members of the TAC’s churches have him to thank for his vision and leadership, though it came at a huge personal cost.

As Primate, Hepworth drafted the 2007 Portsmouth petition to the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, seeking “a communal and ecclesial way of being Anglican Catholics in communion with the Holy See, at once treasuring the full expression of catholic faith and treasuring our tradition within which we have come to this moment.”

The bishops of the TAC signed this petition on the altar of St. Agatha’s Church in Portsmouth, England on Oct. 5 2007 (St Agatha’s consequently became a Catholic parish of the UK Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham).

The letter affirmed that the bishops accepted the Catechism of the Catholic Church as “the most complete and authentic expression and application of the catholic faith at this moment,” and were petitioning to come in without arguing over doctrine.

Hepworth, accompanied by then Bishop Robert Mercer (now Msgr. Mercer) and Bishop Peter Wilkinson, (now Msgr. Wilkinson) then hand delivered the petition to the CDF that same month.

While the TAC was not the only Anglican group that petitioned Rome, it is widely believed this letter served as a catalyst for Pope Benedict’s  2009 Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus that echoed some of the language of the Portsmouth petition.

Pope Benedict opened Anglicanorum coetibus with these words: “In recent times the Holy Spirit has moved groups of Anglicans to petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion individually as well as corporately.”

The Holy Father made provision in the document for the means “to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared.”

The time for rejoicing in 2009 was short for Hepworth, however. In 2010, the TAC began to fall apart as some bishops reneged on their signatures and others who were not at Portsmouth declined Pope Benedict’s generous offer. Not only did whole sections of national churches leave the communion, but many parishes experienced painful splits. Those few bishops and priests who did stay loyal to Hepworth and his vision, however, are now Catholic monsignors and Catholic priests. This splintering would have been difficult enough for any leader, but Hepworth was in the throes of dealing with a personal secret that he had kept buried for years and felt he must now disclose to Church authorities as he was preparing to lead members of the TAC into the Church.

Hepworth had been a Catholic priest before leaving the Church to become an Anglican. He married twice as an Anglican and had children. He told the vicar general of the Adelaide diocese how he had suffered severe sexual abuse by several priests, starting when he was a seminarian at the age 15. This abuse went on for about ten years. He fled Australia for England in 1974 where he became a truck driver. He said the Anglicans took him in. Now he hoped that he could reconcile with the Catholic Church and receive mercy, considering what he had suffered. He stressed he was not looking for any financial compensation, only for understanding.

Alas, he was not believed. Instead, of the mercy and understanding he hoped for, his reputation was trashed. Rumors began to fly that he was a liar, He was described as a crazy, as a charlatan. Soon his calls and correspondence to Rome were not being returned and he was treated with contempt by some of the Roman Catholic bishops who were assigned as episcopal delegates for receiving Anglicans into the Church. This did not help his ability to keep the TAC from splintering further, and it cast a cloud of uncertainty over the priests and communities hoping to enter the Catholic Church’s newly created Ordinariates for the Anglican tradition.

Hepworth’s dreams of unity seemed doomed, until a friend of his approached Cardinal George Pell who suggested that Hepworth go to the Melbourne Archdiocese to collaborate with a process under a Queen’s Counsel (QC) that he had set up for dealing with abuse claims, since one of the abusers had come from that diocese. The QC and his staff accepted as true Hepworth’s testimony of abuse not only in Melbourne, but elsewhere in Australia, opening the way for compensation and counselling.

As a remnant of TAC priests and people were received into the Catholic Church, Hepworth remained outside. He would say he was shepherding everyone he could and he would be the last one to turn out the lights. He attended many of the ordinations of former TAC priests into the Catholic priesthood in Australia and provided episcopal oversight to some last hold-out communities.

Hepworth wanted to be recognized as a Catholic priest. Instead, the Church offered him laicization. In his view, it is priest-abusers who are laicized. He was a victim, however. Why should he have the same punishment as a victimizer?
Thankfully, the new Archbishop of Adelaide Patrick O’Regan “took up the matter and got it through,” said Fr. John Fleming, a Catholic priest and long time friend of Hepworth’s. “All was done canonically correctly.”

Two days before he passed away, in Adelaide, South Australia, Father Telford-Sharpe, a diocesan priest, acting with the explicit authority of the Archbishop, received Fr. Hepworth into the Catholic Church as a priest. The next day, Archbishop O’Regan came to bring him Holy Communion.

“As a priest in both the Catholic and Anglican Churches John Hepworth has left an indelible mark on Church history,” said Fr. Fleming in his contribution to the eulogy read at a Requiem Mass Dec. 9 celebrated by Ordinariate priest Fr. Neville Connell in the Ordinariate Use. Msgr. Carl Reid, the Ordinary of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross, sent a message, as he was prevented from attending in person by Australian public health travel restrictions.

“In pursuing his ecumenical goals as the Primate and leader of the Traditional Anglican Communion, John developed a pathway to unity which culminated in Anglicanorum coetibus, a new law in the Catholic Church setting up what are called the ’Ordinariates’  This new structure within the Catholic Church allowed groups of Anglican including their clergy to enter into Full Communion with the Church in a way that preserved the patrimony of Anglicanism,” Fleming said.

The members of the three ordinariates will remember Archbishop John Hepworth with great gratitude. Upon hearing of his death, one member of the UK Ordinariate commented “He was one of the main reasons that the Ordinariate exists.” A North American member remarked “I am so glad to hear that he was reconciled with the Church.”

“Not since the Reformation upheavals of the 16^th and 17^th centuries has such a unity been achieved,” Fr. Fleming said. “And Father Hepworth and his colleagues laid down the basis of their request for unity with Rome, and Rome fully and generously responded. This was a moment of great historical significance, a gigantic achievement, and will be seen to be so as the history is written in the decades and centuries ahead. John Hepworth must be recognised not only as a champion of Church unity, but also one who succeeded where so many others had failed.”

Father Hepworth died of complications arising from Motor Neuron Disease, or ALS. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.

Editor's note: This story is developing and will be updated as new information comes in.

Deborah Gyapong is the former president of the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society.
 

Photos courtesy of Deborah Gyapong. Photos (top to bottom): 1, Archbishop John Hepworth while visiting Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Ottawa in 2010; 2, Archbishop Hepworth speaks with Cardinal William Levada in Kingston, Ontario; 3, Archbishop Hepworth listens to then-Msgr. Steven J. Lopes (now bishop of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter), who was Cardinal Levada's priest-secretary; 4, Archbishop Hepworth in clerical dress at a 2010 Synod of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, one of the TAC national churches.