James Hagerty

Bishop Gordon Wheeler James Hagerty

WILLIAM GORDON WHEELER was one of a distinguished line of English Catholic prelates who were formerly Anglican priests. Born in Yorkshire in 1910, Wheeler attended Manchester Grammar School and University College, Oxford. He ministered briefly as an Anglican priest before converting to Catholicism in 1936. Seminary studies in Rome brought him directly to the centre of the Catholic Church. Ordained in 1940, Wheeler was successively a curate in Edmonton, chaplain of Westminster Cathedral, editor of the Westminster Chronicle, and chaplain to London University before becoming Administrator of Westminster Cathedral. There he displayed organizational talent, artistic taste, social skills and a deep love of the Catholic liturgy. As Coadjutor Bishop of Middlesbrough, Wheeler attended the Second Vatican Council. Whilst welcoming many reforms, the theologically conservative Wheeler became disenchanted with liturgical changes. Nevertheless, as Bishop of Leeds from 1966 to 1985, he faithfully implemented the administrative and pastoral changes initiated by the Council. Wheeler's episcopate was set against international and domestic turmoil, social and moral change, and challenges to authority. Falling Mass attendances and the loss of priests saddened him greatly but he faced these challenges with strong faith. He was influenced by the lives of the saints and English martyrs, but particularly by the writings of another Anglican convert - John Henry Newman. Style, courtesy and taste were Wheeler's hallmarks and he was dubbed 'the Last of the Prince Bishops'. An educated priest and an astute bishop, he was humorous and sociable. He was a man of prayer with a profound social conscience. Many argued that the Catholic Church he entered in 1936 was not the one in which he died in 1998. For all his sadness at some of the changes, he would argue differently. Throughout his long ministry he embraced with great love all he had sought from the Catholic Church. His life was a journey into the fullness of faith.