It is with great sadness that the Diocese of Leeds has announced the death of Fr Peter Nealon . Fr Peter died at St Gemma’s Hospice in Leeds on the afternoon of Sunday 23 June. aged 83.

Please pray for the repose of his soul and for his family and friends at this time.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.

Fr Peter Nealon RIP

Peter Nealon was born in Leeds on 30 March 1941. He came from a well-known family in the parish of St Joseph, Hunslet. His elder brother Michael, who died in December 2022, also became a priest of the Leeds Diocese. Peter studied for the priesthood at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth and then at the Venerable English College in Rome. He was ordained at the Venerabile on the day of his twenty-seventh birthday, 30 March 1968.

After ordination Fr Peter’s first appointment was to the parish of the Blessed Sacrament at Athersley, near Barnsley (now in the Diocese of Hallam). From 1969-72 he was resident at Ushaw College in County Durham while studying for a degree. In 1972 he became Assistant Priest in the parish of St Joseph, Castleford. From there he moved to St Matthew’s, Bradford where he was Assistant Priest from 1979 until 1984.

Fr Nealon became a Parish Priest for the first time in 1984 when Bishop Wheeler appointed him to St Thomas More, Chickenley. From 1990 to 1999 he was the Parish Priest of St Philip’s, at Middleton in Leeds, where he built the present church, which opened in 1996. In 1999 he moved to St Malachy’s, Halifax where he was Parish Priest until 2016, when he assumed responsibility for St Patrick’s, Elland. He retired from active ministry in 2019.

Across the Diocese of Leeds there are people who will remember Fr Nealon for his forceful character, while others, who attended either St Bede’s Grammar School in Bradford, or St Wilfrid’s High School at Featherstone, will recall his skills as a teacher of mathematics. But above all we remember Fr Nealon as a priest of wide experience, both as an educator and as a pastor, who served the Bishops and people of the Diocese with great loyalty for more than half a century.

May he rest in peace.