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").[3][4] 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.[5]
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 on 3 June 1944 as a priest of the Diocese of Westminster,[6] 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.[6]
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 to Roman Catholicism.) 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.[8]
On 11 May 2008, during the Christian Walk of Witness, the Sheppard-Worlock Statue 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 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.[9]
