Derek John Harford Worlock CH (4 February 1920 – 8 February 1996) was an English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church and

Archbishop of Liverpool The Archbishop of Liverpool is the ordinary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool and metropolitan of the Province of Liverpool (also known as the Northern Province) in England. The archdiocese covers an area of of the west of the C ...

Life

Worlock was born in St John's Wood, London, on 4 February 1920, the son of Captain Harford Worlock and his wife Dora (née Hoblyn), a suffragette (or as she called herself, a "suffragist"). His father, a journalist turned Conservative political agent, attended Keble College, Oxford, and planned to become a priest in the Church of England; many of his forebears had been Anglican clergy. However, Harford and Dora Worlock converted to Roman Catholicism and raised their son in that faith. Worlock was a student at St Edmund's College from 1934 to 1944. By this time the family home was in Winchester. As a small boy he was rebuked for "having an answer to everything", a trait that remained. He was ordained at

Old Hall Green Old Hall Green is a hamlet in Hertfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census the population was included in the civil parish of Standon. In 1793, an academy, St. Edmund's College, Ware, was established there which provided a school for Catholic b ...

on 3 June 1944 as a priest of the Diocese of Westminster,Larsen, Chris. ''Catholic Bishops of Great Britain'', Sacristy Press, 2016, p. 153
/ref> seminarians being exempt from military service so they could be rushed through to serve as chaplains. Not long afterwards, he was appointed private secretary to Cardinal Griffin, and assisted successive cardinal-archbishops of Westminster for almost two decades. He attended every session of the Second Vatican Council between 1962 and 1965. Worlock was appointed Bishop of Portsmouth on 18 October 1965 and

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

at the Cathedral of St John the Evangelist, Portsmouth, on 21 December 1965. While in Portsmouth he set about renewing parishes, as well as undertaking the work of developing ecumenical relationships and the building of over 30 new churches in his diocese. In 1976, he was appointed

. He was one of the panelists for the first edition of the BBC programme '' Question Time'' in 1979. The following year, he convened at Liverpool the National Pastoral Congress which gave rise to the report " The Easter People". Important events in his cathedral included the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1982 and the 1990 launch of the Council of Churches of Britain and Ireland. Worlock contributed to the work of reconciliation after the Toxteth riots in 1981 and in the aftermath of the football stadium tragedies at Heysel in 1985 and

Hillsborough Hillsborough may refer to: Australia *Hillsborough, New South Wales, a suburb of Lake Macquarie Canada *Hillsborough, New Brunswick *Hillsborough Parish, New Brunswick * Hillsborough, Nova Scotia, in Inverness County *Hillsborough (electoral d ...

in 1989. Worlock was committed to evangelisation and collaborated with his fellow Christian leaders, as demonstrated by the books ''Better Together'' and ''With Hope in our Hearts'' which he and his Anglican counterpart in Liverpool, Bishop David Sheppard, jointly produced. (Sheppard's daughter, Jenny, converted from

Anglicanism Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

.) In July 1992, Worlock underwent major surgery for lung cancer. He survived long enough to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood two years later, before succumbing to the disease in 1996.

Legacy

In January 1994, along with David Sheppard, he was awarded the

Freedom of the City The Freedom of the City (or Borough in some parts of the UK) is an honour bestowed by a municipality upon a valued member of the community, or upon a visiting celebrity or dignitary. Arising from the medieval practice of granting respected ...

of Liverpool. He was appointed as a

Companion of Honour The Order of the Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded on 4 June 1917 by King George V as a reward for outstanding achievements. Founded on the same date as the Order of the British Empire, it is sometimes ...

in the

1996 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 1996 were appointments by most of the sixteen Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries, and honorary ones to citizens of other co ...

, but died of cancer four days after his 76th birthday and one day after the 20th anniversary of his appointment as archbishop, just a week before he was due to be invested. On 11 May 2008, during the Christian Walk of Witness, the

Sheppard-Worlock Statue The Sheppard-Worlock Statue is a statue located in Liverpool, England, commemorating two of the city's former bishops; David Sheppard (the Anglican Bishop of Liverpool), and Derek Worlock (the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool). It was des ...

in the form of two bronze doors was unveiled to honour both Worlock and David Sheppard. The memorial was designed by the sculptor

Stephen Broadbent Stephen Broadbent is a British sculptor, specialising in public art. He was born in Wroughton, Wiltshire in 1961 and educated at Liverpool Blue Coat School. In Liverpool he studied sculpture for four years under Arthur Dooley. He has created publ ...

and was funded by public donations. The memorial is situated halfway down Liverpool's Hope Street, which joins both the Roman Catholic and Anglican cathedrals.

References

Sources

* Kay, David J. S. (2003). ''The People of St Edmund's College'' (The Edmundian Association).

External links

Clifford Longley, editor of ''The Tablet'', on Worlock as a product of the Counter Reformation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Worlock, Derek 1920 births 1996 deaths Participants in the Second Vatican Council Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour 20th-century Roman Catholic bishops in England 20th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in the United Kingdom Roman Catholic archbishops of Liverpool Deaths from lung cancer in England People educated at St Edmund's College, Ware People from Westminster Roman Catholic bishops of Portsmouth British Roman Catholic archbishops