PE’s Fr Billy Barnes dies at 92

One of South Africa’s longest-serving priests, Fr William “Billy” Barnes of the diocese of Port Elizabeth, died on July 10 at the age of 92.

The Requiem Mass for Fr Barnes will be celebrated on Tuesday, July 21, at Eucharistic Heart church in Cambridge, East London, at 11:00.

Ordained to the priesthood on December 7, 1958, Fr Barnes devoted more than six decades to the service of the Church, ministering to generations of Catholics across the diocese. Known universally as Fr Billy, he was remembered for his warm manner, good sense of humour and deep love for the people he served.

Born on January 18, 1934, to Ena and Victor Barnes, Billy was educated by the Irish Dominican Sisters, entering St Dominic’s Priory in 1939. It was then a girls’ school, but about half a dozen boys were admitted. He was popular with the girls because he rode to school on his Shetland pony, Prince, and gave them rides during breaks.

At the age of eight, he was sent to St Aidan’s College in Grahamstown, where he played cricket, rugby and hockey — “and not doing much in the academic line”, as he later joked. He credited the Jesuit Fathers there with instilling in him a great love of Christ and sowing the seeds of his vocation. He was ten years old when he decided to become a priest one day.

Straight after matriculating, Barnes entered St John Vianney Seminary, where he spent seven years studying and preparing for the priesthood. He was ordained by Bishop Ernest Green in St Augustine’s cathedral — the church where he had been baptised 24 years earlier.

In an article on his vocation, titled Memories of a Priest for The Southern Cross in June 2025, Fr Barnes recalled a troubling incident on the night before his ordination:

“Over the telephone, I was told by a stranger’s voice: ‘We are coming to kill you.’ I was on retreat at a convent in Port Elizabeth, preparing for my ordination to the priesthood the next day, December 7, 1958. I didn’t know what to do other than look around for a weapon to defend myself. All I could find was a coat hanger in the bedroom closet. I slept — or tried to — with the ‘weapon’ close by. I thank God that the ‘voice’ — I never found out who he was — didn’t carry out his threat that night, or ever, and the next day I was ordained.”

Fr Barnes’ first appointment was to Immaculate Conception parish in East London, where he assisted Mgr John O’Keeffe. He would serve three separate terms there, amounting to 16 years in all. He also spent ten years at Sacred Heart parish in Kabega Park, Port Elizabeth, nine years in Grahamstown, eight years in Cambridge, East London, and shorter periods in King William’s Town and Port Alfred. He also spent four years in the United States raising funds for the diocesan missions.

He retired in 2010 after 52 years of active priestly ministry and lived at St Pius Pastoral Centre in East London with his faithful canine companions. In retirement he initiated Bible study classes and enjoyed a weekly round of golf.

Even in retirement, Fr Barnes remained closely connected to the life of the Church. He continued to take a keen interest in the diocese and in the priests with whom he had shared so much of his life and ministry, though he regretted not being able to get to know many of the diocese’s younger priests.

An enthusiastic supporter of The Southern Cross, Fr Barnes was also a keen writer. Recognising that the stories of many priests and religious who had served the Eastern Cape since 1830 might otherwise be forgotten, he compiled Just Remembering, a collection of biographical sketches preserving the memories of those who helped build up the local Church.

Reviewing the book in The Southern Cross in 2011, Michael Shackleton observed: “Fr Barnes has been meticulous in gathering information and writing it up descriptively, in spite of the often frustrating lack of material.”

An enthusiastic Holy Land pilgrim and expert, Fr Barnes also wrote books of reflections on the Gospels of St John and St Mark.

Last year, in another Southern Cross article, he reflected on growing old. He wrote: “The extra days of life also present opportunities to humbly speak to God, whom we might have neglected at some time or another. We will soon be in the presence of God, face to face with him — he should not be a stranger to us when the moment arrives that we finally meet him.” 

We pray that Fr Billy now encounters the Lord as a loving Father, and that the Father receives his faithful priest into his warm embrace.