Peter Hebblethwaite was born on 30 September 1930 in Lancashire, England. He was the eldest of two sons born to Charles Hebblethwaite and Elsie MacDonald. He was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church at St. Anne’s and attended primary school attached to that parish.

Hebblethwaite began his college studies at Xavierian College in Manchester and, in 1948, became a novice in the Society of Jesus at Manresa, Roehampton. In 1951, Hebblethwatie was sent by his superiors to study philosophy at the French Jesuit house at Chantilly, where he became fluent in French and competent in German. Upon his return to Roehampton, Hebblethwaite spent a year studying pedagogy, before transferring to Campion Hall at Oxford University to continue his language studies. Graduating from Oxford in 1958, Hebblethwaite then taught for two years at Mount St. Mary’s, Spinkhill, and studied theology for four years at Heythrop College. He was ordained a priest in the Jesuit order in 1963.

Following the writing of Hebblethwaite’s first book Bernanos: An Introduction (1965), he failed his final examinations at Heythrop, and this precluded him from a career in lecturing. He was sent for a final year of Jesuit formation in Paray-le Monial in France and from there to use his literary skills on the Jesuit magazine The Month. The editor, Ronald Moffatt SJ, sent Hebblethwaite to Rome to cover the final session of the second Vatican Council in 1965.

In 1973, Hebblethwaite left the Society of Jesus. He married Margaret Isabella Mary Speaight, a theologian and a journalist, in 1974. They had three children, two sons and a daughter. Hebblethwaite continued to write for a number of journals and newspapers (e.g., the Tablet and the National Catholic Reporter) on Vatican affairs and the Catholic Church for the rest of his life. Hebblethwaite was also the author of numerous books, including two well-received biographies: John XXIII: Pope of the Council (1984) and Pope Paul VI: the First Modern Pope (1992). He died in 1994.

Source:

Michael J. Walsh, “Hebblethwaite, Peter (1930-1994),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/55016 (accessed 9 April 2008).