A great churchman

When the history of the Southern African Church in the 20th century is written, two men will tower above the worthy rest: Mgr Frederick Kolbe and Archbishop Denis Hurley.

Both men had staunch relationships with this newspaper. Indeed, both contributed to it in defining ways. Mgr Kolbe did so not only through his erudite apologetics and theological treatises, but also, in a more light-hearted vein, as Uncle Joe, the children’s columnist throughout the 1920s and into the 30s.

Among his many fans was the young lighthouse keeper’s son Denis Eugene Hurley. In keeping with tradition, Uncle Joe assigned the new member of the Children’s Corner club a nickname, Robin. Denise sister Eileen, who died in 2002, was known as Tiger Lily.

Thus began Denis Hurley’s close and affectionate relationship with The Southern Cross.

A week before the announcement of his appointment in December 1946 as bishop of the vicariate of Natal, this newspaper published his article on Pope Pius XII and Christmas (the editor at the time was Fr Owen McCann, who as archbishop of Cape Town and South Africa’s first cardinal would become another giant in the history of the local Church).

In the 1950s, the various pastoral letters and episcopal statements spearheaded by Archbishop Hurley, especially on the inequity of apartheid, found a willing vehicle for dissemination in The Southern Cross.

Then came the Second Vatican Council, inaugurated by Pope John XXIII in 1962, and concluded by Pope Paul VI in 1965. The Southern Cross covered the Council in detail according to the Church historian Phillippe Denis OP, the newspaper published 450 articles on the Council during those three momentous years.

Few Catholic newspapers can claim that among their regular Vatican II correspondents was one of the chief architects of the Council himself. Of course, these reports could never appear under Archbishop Hurley’s byline. Nevertheless, The Southern Cross became one of the world’s great authorities on Council matters.

Archbishop Hurley was never far from the headlines in The Southern Cross. Indeed, often The Southern Cross was the only newspaper that reported widely on the archbishop’s statements and activities a freedom the secular press did not enjoy.

For example, in May 1983, editors Rex Gibson of the Rand Daily Mail and Johnny Johnson of the Citizen (of all newspapers) were being investigated by the apartheid regime for publicising a speech made by Archbishop Hurley.

While this episode is insignificant in terms of the media persecution of the 1980s, it does show just how much the apartheid government feared the archbishop (this was confirmed two years later when the regime sought to intimidate Archbishop Hurley by instituting charges against him.)

After his retirement as archbishop of Durban in 1992, he continued contributing to The Southern Cross. His memoirs of Vatican II, an illuminating series of sketches published in 2001, have received worldwide acclaim. Originally intended as a two-part feature, the archbishop informed the editor that he would require about eight installments to provide an overview of his wealth of memories. In the end, the series ran for 18 welcome weeks.

Archbishop Hurley’s relationship with The Southern Cross lasted almost to the end. When he was asked last November to write a guest editorial for our Christmas issue, the archbishop submitted an illuminating article that outlined God’s guiding hand from the creation of the universe to his gift to us of his son.

Archbishop Hurley may now be gone but his spirit will continue to guide the newspaper he supported for virtually his whole life.