Hepworth began his seminary studies in 1960 at St Francis Xavier Seminary in Adelaide. In 1968 he was ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church for the Archdiocese of Adelaide. In 1972 he moved to Britain. After returning to Australia in 1976 he was received into the Anglican Church of Australia as a priest. 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. In 1992 Hepworth joined the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia. On 29 June 1996 he was consecrated as a bishop, together with Robert John Friend, in the Pro-Cathedral of the Resurrection, Brisbane, by bishops Albert N. Haley, Robert C. Crawley, Wellborn Hudson and John Hazlewood. Hepworth served as an assistant bishop until April 1998 when Bishop Friend resigned. From then until November 1999, Hepworth acted as bishop administrator. At the national synod of the ACCA, held from 25 to 29 November 1999, he was elected as the new diocesan bishop. In 2002 he was elected as primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion in succession to Louis Falk. Hepworth was involved in a process to create an Australian ordinariate for former Anglicans in the Roman Catholic Church. His personal history complicated the situation. He was not raised Anglican, but had left the Catholic Church and then married twice and had three children. On 1 March 2012, the TAC bishops voted against union with the Roman Catholic Church. They also voted to accept Hepworth's already announced resignation as TAC primate with immediate effect. On 16 May 2012, the TAC College of Bishops suspended Hepworth, meaning that he ceased to be the TAC Bishop Ordinary of Australia. Hepworth has a degree in political science and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Adelaide in 1982 with a thesis about Catholic Action entitled "The Movement Revisited: A South Australian Perspective". 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 1998 he was elected to the Australian Constitutional Convention as a member of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy. He formerly chaired the Australia-Vietnam Human Rights Committee in South Australia. Hepworth was formerly heard regularly on Adelaide's 5AA radio station where he acted as a political commentator on the conservative Leon Byner Show. He has been married twice and has three children. Hepworth says that he was a victim of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Australia during the 1960s and 1970s. He has alleged that he was raped on numerous occasions by three priests during his seminary studies and that the Catholic Church had failed to follow due process.
