The Great Denis Hurley

During the dark days of apartheid, a group of bishops met with President PW Botha in a bid to present their concerns to the government. At one point, Mr Botha presumed that Cardinal Owen McCann of Cape Town was a missionary bishop, telling him that if he did not like South Africa’s system, he could leave.

Archbishop Denis Hurley of Durban pointed out that all bishops in the delegation were born in South Africa — unlike the architect of apartheid, HF Verwoerd. He then continued to explain, calmly and with logical precision, the Catholic Church’s position.

This anecdote is characteristic of some of Archbishop Hurley’s attributes: his engagement for justice, his courage in speaking truth to power, his searing intellect, his capacity to elucidate complex issues, and even his quick wit.

Archbishop Hurley, who was born 100 years ago on November 9, had many other admirable attributes: a profoundly spiritual faith which never ceased to look for truths, his passion for the Church and the liturgy, his empathy for the weak and the marginalised, and so on.

There is no exaggeration in saying that Archbishop Hurley was the towering figure of the South African Catholic Church in the second half of the 20th century, one who earned the admiration of Catholics around the world, not least for his distinguished contribution to the Second Vatican Council.

Even outside the Catholic Church, Archbishop Hurley was seen by many as a giant, to the extent that Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu testified that he and other anti-apartheid clerics “stood on his shoulders”.

Archbishop Hurley’s support encouraged Catholic schools to smash racial segregation in their institutions as far back as the 1970s; Archbishop Hurley risked prosecution for revealing the crimes of Namibia’s Koevoet operatives; he fought against the influx control laws which tore families apart; he led countless protest marches, many of which started at Emmanuel cathedral; he was a key force in the founding of the anti-apartheid newspaper New Nation by the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference; and so on.

His home was fire-bombed and his life was under perennial threat — even, it is said, from some Catholics!

It is therefore puzzling that in the general discourse of Christian opposition to apartheid, the name Denis Hurley often is ignored when it should be right at the top, alongside those of Tutu and Beyers Naudé.

Archbishop Hurley never sought public acclaim, and yet should there not be a monument to the great archbishop in a prominent location in the city of Durban?

Within the Church, Archbishop Hurley was not uncontroversial. Apart from his political engagement, which some resented, he also acquired a reputation for holding progressive positions. His dismay at elements of Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae won him both admiration and opprobrium.

His outspoken critique of Humanae Vitae is often cited as the reason why he never received the cardinal’s red hat, an honour he doubtless merited. This might, however, go back to the late 1950s, when Archbishop Hurley “defied” the wishes of the apostolic delegate — the representative of the Holy See — by issuing a strong statement criticising the apartheid regime.

Now there are many who would like the archdiocese of Durban to initiate a sainthood cause for Denis Hurley. The decision as to whether or not such an idea has merit and broad support resides with Cardinal Wilfrid Napier or his successors as archbishop of Durban.

It would not diminish the memory of Archbishop Hurley should he not become the subject of a sainthood cause. But his legacy would be devalued if we were to forget his prophetic witness, one that called us to love God, to bring justice to God’s people on earth, and to accompany them on the pilgrim journey through life with love and compassion.

Happily, this prophetic witness is now finding expression in the commendable centre named after Archbishop Hurley next to Durban’s Emmanuel cathedral, the church in which he spent the last years of his active ministry as a parish priest.

And so, a hundred years after his birth, the spirit of Archbishop Denis Hurley lives on. May this giant of the Church be remembered and God thanked for his life in Masses throughout Southern Africa this weekend.