Born in 1944 to Catholic parents, Hepworth began his seminary studies in 1960 at St Francis Xavier Seminary in Adelaide, Austrailia. Hepworth alleged publicly in 2011 that he was repeatedly raped and sexually abused over a period of 12 years from age 15 by two priests and a seminary student. This would have placed the dates from 1959 or '60 to 1971 or '72, with the abuse occurring while he was between the ages of 15 and 27. (The fact that the "abuse" continued well into his adulthood raises questions of consent.) In 1968 he was ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church for the Archdiocese of Adelaide. An article in The Australian says he left the Catholic Church in 1972, when he "fled" to Britain and drove trucks for Boots chemists.
After returning to Australia in 1976, he was received into the Anglican Church of Australia (the mainstream Anglican Communion franchise) as a priest. Another Australian article details allegations of financial mismanagement beginning in this period: "A Catholic archdiocese source said allegations of financial mismanagement were raised when Archbishop Hepworth was administrator of the parish of Glenelg, a beachside Adelaide suburb, in 1974." (This would contradict the statement that he left the Catholic Church in 1972.) From 1976 to 1977 he had permission to officiate in the Anglican Diocese of Ballarat. From 1977 to 1978 he was the assistant priest in the Colac parish and, from 1978 to 1980, was the rector of the South Ballarat parish based in Sebastopol. According to the Australian link,
He also faced court in Ballarat about 30 years ago charged with misappropriating $1200 from the Anglican parish of Sebastopol. "I wrote a cheque from a church account for a debt; there was no conviction recorded," he said.He apparently returned to school. He has a degree in political science and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Adelaide in 1982. For five years he was a lecturer in politics at the Northern Territory University before becoming co-ordinator of international studies at the University of South Australia.
In 1992 Hepworth joined the breakaway TAC Anglican Catholic Church in Australia (ACCA) for unspecified reasons, under unspecified circumstances. In 1996 he was consecrated as a bishop. He served as an assistant bishop until April 1998 when the diocesan resigned due to health problems. From then until November 1999, Hepworth acted as bishop administrator. In 1999 he was elected as the new diocesan bishop. In 2002 he was elected Primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) in succession to Archbishop Louis Falk.
The tribunal conducted by the TAC in October 2012 alleged that apparently at some time after his election as Primate in 2002, he was guilty of financial irregularities connected to
alterations and additions to private properties owned by [Hepworth] and lay canon Cheryl Woodman."Both you and Ms Woodman have made substantial alterations and additions to your private properties at the expense of the Australian church to accommodate the Office of the Primate, and I require details of those additions to private property from you, as well as the authorisation that preceded the construction thereof," Archbishop Prakash wrote.
In 2005, Hepworth and other Australian TAC figures began talks to determine an effective strategy to unify the Traditional Anglican Communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Their conclusion was to request that Rome receive the TAC in a body, with the TAC acknowledging Rome's complete supremacy. As a gesture of good faith, the TAC bishops would acknowledge the authority of the Roman Catechism. In 2007, a large number of TAC bishops and vicars general signed a letter known as the Portsmouth Declaration, which contained the petition and acknowledgement. (Of those notable in the current controversy, Bishops Prakash, Gill, Moyer, and Williams were present and signed the letter; Bishops Marsh and Strawn were not present and did not sign.)
Also in 2007, Hepworth began meetings with the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide regarding his allegations of clerical abuse from 40 years earlier. However, he would not give the archdiocese permission to investigate his allegations until 2011, citing the trauma resulting from the abuse.
In 2008, Hepworth by his account ordained Peter Slipper, an alcoholic Australian politician who became Speaker of the country's parliament, to the TAC priesthood, although by his account he was fully aware of Slipper's drinking.
[A] church member said he believed Mr Slipper's ordination had been strategic and viewed as "a good thing" as the MP was perceived to be "on the way up".
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI issued the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, which although it offered an additional path and inducements for Anglicans to convert to Catholicism, caused some disappointment in specifying that those wishing to convert would need to do so as individuals or as part of individual parishes. The TAC would not be brought in as a body. Clergy in particular would be evaluated for Catholic ordination on a case-by-case basis. As a result, in 2010, three US bishops of the TAC/ACA (Strawn, Marsh, and Williams) issued a letter essentially withdrawing from any promises implicit in the Portsmouth Declaration. (Neither Strawn nor Marsh had attended the Portsmouth meeting in any case.) Bishop Prakash of India and Bishop Gill of South Africa subsequently withdrew their support as well.
In particular, the need for clergy to be re-ordained as Catholics presented problems for Hepworth, who had already left the Catholic priesthood (the Catholic Church won't re-ordain former Catholic priests). He'd had a divorce and remarriage, and had been consecrated a bishop in another denomination, thus incurring excommunication as a Catholic. This meant that unless the Catholic Church made several major exceptions in his case, he would not be eligible for the priesthood, much less a bishopric. Nevertheless, he hoped that the allegations of abuse he'd made earlier might be applied as mitigating circumstances. With those hopes fading, though, in 2011, he made his decades-old allegations public and filed a police report. In 2012, the time bomb that was Peter Slipper went off, with Slipper being forced to step aside from his position in Parliament under allegations of expense account fraud and gay sexual harassment; his position as Hepworth's protege hit the press as well. And the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide concluded that the final living priest Hepworth had named in his accusations was innocent of abuse.
In December 2011, the bishops of the Traditional Anglican Communion called for Hepworth's immediate resignation. Hepworth responded with a promise to retire in mid-2012. In response, the bishops elected Samuel Prakash of India as the temporary primate, and via various apparently irregular proceedings throughout 2012 moved to expel him from the TAC College of Bishops. While Hepworth continues to have defenders, his credibility had been seriously damaged.
A letter from Bishop Botterill quoted here strongly implied that financial irregularities were not the problem and gives this reason for the expulsion:
When the College of Bishops met for the first time since the Holy Father issued Anglicanorum Coetibus they unanimously voted to decline the invitation to become Roman Catholic and wrote to the Holy Father of the resolution of the Traditional Anglican Communion to remain Anglican. Thereafter, and contrary to the resolution of the College of Bishops, Archbishop Hepworth (having resigned as Primate) continued to advocate that our Dioceses be disbanded and that our members become Roman Catholics.This brings us back to some of the conflicts within the TAC and the ACA and their direct impact on the St Mary of the Angels situation.
