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'The best cardinal Africa never had'
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Guardian of the Light: Archbishop Denis Hurley: Renewing the Church, Opposing Apartheid
By Paddy Kearney
Published by Continuum, $34.95
When I write my novel about Vatican II, one of its main characters will look a lot like Denis Hurley. He will be a bishop -- no, an archbishop. A very tall, very handsome, very well-spoken archbishop from South Africa. But he won't be a cardinal, because he will be the rarest kind of prelate, a man who tells the truth to power, even to the pope.
My imagination got running along these lines when I was racing this week through a new biography of the real Archbishop Hurley, one of my closest friends among the fathers of Vatican II. This magisterial work was written with loving care by Paddy Kearney. For three decades, Kearney headed a social action team in Durban, South Africa, called Diakonia, which Hurley founded.
In 1951, as chairman of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, Hurley drafted the first of a series of pastoral letters denouncing apartheid as "blasphemy" and "intrinsically evil." And then he put himself, body and soul, into a frankly political campaign to walk those ideas around the country. He marched in demonstrations alongside Desmond Tutu and Alan Paton. He encouraged Catholic schools to start admitting nonwhite students. He confronted Koevoet, the state security police, over its atrocities in Namibia, and found himself brought up on charges of sedition. (He beat the charges and won 25,000 rand from the state for malicious prosecution.)
At the age of 16, Hurley had been "very much a white boy," heading off in 1932 from his native Pietermaritzburg to priestly training in Ireland and then for seven years in Rome. There, he was captured by the social encyclicals of Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI. "We ate and slept and pondered over Quadragesimo Anno," Hurley recalled, side by side with dusky seminarians from Sri Lanka whom he accepted as equals. He did his graduate thesis on the banks and big mining companies of South Africa, skewering them for their oppression of the poor and working classes.
Back in Durban, in his first assignment as a curate in the cathedral, Hurley was puzzled to find the ruling party moving Durban's 69,000 Africans, 8,000 people of mixed ethnic descent, 87,000 Indians, and 92,000 whites toward a strict separation of the races. Hurley saw the policy (with his new Roman eyes) as an abomination, but he found that white congregations didn't want to hear his ideas.
Then Rome made him a bishop. He was just 31, the youngest bishop in the Catholic universe, and shortly after that an archbishop. He spoke four languages, he was zealous, and, at 6 feet 4 inches, he had a presence. All he needed was a postgraduate course in Catholicism, which he soon received as a delegate to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). There, he learned from the church's greatest theologians, and he hobnobbed with bishops like Hélder Câmara of Recife, Brazil, who were speaking on the need for a church to encourage Catholics everywhere to seek justice for the poor.
After the council, Hurley added a confident new voice to the struggle of Nelson Mandela and others in their long fight for racial equality. Much of this book details Hurley's efforts to help create a more just society in South Africa.
NCR readers may also be fascinated with Hurley's attempt to make Pope Paul VI a listening pope. Kearney prints an exchange of letters between Hurley and the pope shortly after Humanae Vitae. Hurley writes that the pope "should not be laying down laws for the community without a good knowledge of the needs and conditions of the community." Paul VI reacts defensively and falls back on his own authority. "We took upon Ourself," he writes to Hurley, "the responsibility, which pertains to Our supreme ministry, of declaring on the point at issue, what is the law of God."
Jesuit Fr. Walter Burghardt wasn't sure that when it came to marital questions, the pope had any special information about "the law of God." In 1974, he asked Hurley to write a piece for his quarterly Theological Studies on "Population Control and the Catholic Conscience." In that article, Hurley said the magisterium should "move heaven and earth" to change a social situation where white exploitation results in illegitimate births for 60 percent of the blacks in his own nation. Otherwise, the church would have no right to teach. When word about the impending piece reached Rome, the Vatican's secretary of state asked Burghardt to kill it. Burghardt had to tell him his request was a day late: The issue had just gone to press.
The Vatican's No. 2 man told Hurley that because of what he had written in Theological Studies, he would cancel his membership in the bishops' synod of 1974. If you do that, Hurley replied, he would tell the world why. The Vatican backed off, and Hurley went to that synod -- and to a number of other synods where he kept affirming the need for Rome to listen to the bishops in the boondocks.
Toward the end of his life, on Dec. 15, 2002, Hurley attended the ordination of two women (a priest and a deacon) at St. Thomas's Anglican Church in Durban, participated in the liturgical procession, sat in the sanctuary for the service, addressed the congregation, and, in the sanctuary after the ceremony, kissed the new deacon and the new priest. "Don't tell the pope," he wrote, reporting the event to a friend. Another friend asked him when such an event might happen in the Catholic church. He replied, "When I get to heaven, I shall do my best to promote the idea."
Kearney's account of Hurley's struggle with Rome over the International Commission for English in the Liturgy is worth the price of the whole book. As chairman, Hurley fought the commission's battles with Rome for more than three decades, mainly over the rights of English-speaking Catholics to pray in their own language and their own idiom. In July 2001, the Congregation for Divine Worship declared an end to that battle with Liturgiam Authenticam. That document not only put aside the commission's work, it replaced its collegial structure with two Vatican-appointed commissions of English-speaking cardinals and bishops who knew how to take orders from Rome. Soon, Hurley resigned as the South African bishops' representative on the commission.
Hurley never did get a red hat nor did he expect one. He didn't need a red hat to shepherd his flock in Durban for 41 years, lead in the fight against apartheid, and bring the lessons of Vatican II home to his fellow Catholics.
Which is why Julian Filochowski, director of Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, a hunger-fighting organization in the United Kingdom, called Hurley "the best cardinal Africa never had."
[Robert Blair Kaiser, the author of Cardinal Mahony: A Novel, covered Vatican II for TIME magazine.]
Section:
I. Book Reviews 
I think we can direct a
I think we can direct a prayer or two through this priest. If he isn't a saint who can be.
Where are bishops who fight
Where are bishops who fight for the people these days? Certainly not in the U.S.! The far majority are toadies for Rome instead of lovers of the Gospel.
Well, we can start with
Well, we can start with Bishop Thomas Gumbleton whose excellent homilies are published on this very site. There are others as well, Edward Cullen of Allentown (now retired) for example. Being a bishop doesn't necessarily place you among the reactionaries, although we do have to perform some hunting to find the ones who aren't.
Another fine bishop of the
Another fine bishop of the Vatican II era was Robert F. Joyce, bishop of Burlington, Vt., who granted the imprimatur to the Dutch Catechism, a permission later withdrawn by Rome.
He was popular with Catholic laypeople, his priests and students at the University of Vermont, of which he was a graduate and a trustee. The chancery was on fraternity row.
South Africa was blessed with
South Africa was blessed with Archbishop Hurley, a man truly held in high regard by his people, as was testified to at his massive funeral mass in Durban - a stadium full. We continue to be blessed in Archbishop Hurley's relative, Bishop Kevin Dowling C.Ss.R. of Rustenburg, a man who as bishop shepherds his people by paying careful attention to their needs. Surely, Denis E. Hurley OMI is a saint in heaven - we do not need canonisation to testify to his holiness... the memories South Africans have of him speak volumes!
How exciting to read about
How exciting to read about this amazing man, and also to see the story of his wonderful interaction with Father Burghardt pop up! It was a privilege to hear Father Burghardt preach at the Community at Georgetown University many years ago. He had an understanding of the New Testament that made it come entirely alive.
After all these years, a slender collection of his homilies, "Sir We Would Like to See Jesus" still holds a place of prominence on my bookshelves.
It's encouraging to me to read about brave Bishop Hurley, who saw the terrible conditions of his place and time, and stood strongly with the courage of what he had witnessed. So often, with an elevation in rank, people are cut off from what is really happening in the world, and they become too distracted with ceremony or administrative duties or too lazy to really care, and forget to fight for those they passionately cared about when they were younger. Maybe it was his youth, but Hurley kept on fighting, it seems.
Re the rest of the article: One always wondered what happened to Paul VI around Humanae Vitae...there are many "stories" around the politics of it, but there is no question that it has cost many lives since (the AIDS epidemic in Africa, for example). It is a "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin"-type thing, and has made the Church increasingly irrelevant to many.
Perhaps the Hierarchy feels that these are age-old questions ("justice" questions?--and I know the Church has tried to fight for justice, which existed even in Jesus' time (and they did) but Jesus also tried to do His best (individually) to solve them. At the moment, however, the problems are so huge, they threaten the stewardship of the very Earth itself; therefore one would expect that the Vatican has more responsibility to address these problems in a 21st Century way.
We need more Bishop Hurley's
We need more Bishop Hurley's to ensure a Catholic Church for the people, who I think many times are far more aware of Jesus and the Gospels than do the Magisterium who appear to be more administrators and politions than than as leaders of human universal church.
We can always pray that God
We can always pray that God raises up other people of privledge, willing to preach the Gospel of God's loving presence by standing with the poor and powerless.
"Kearney's account of
"Kearney's account of Hurley's struggle with Rome over the International Commission for English in the Liturgy is worth the price of the whole book. As chairman, Hurley fought the commission's battles with Rome for more than three decades, mainly over the rights of English-speaking Catholics to pray in their own language and their own idiom. In July 2001, the Congregation for Divine Worship declared an end to that battle with Liturgiam Authenticam. That document not only put aside the commission's work, it replaced its collegial structure with two Vatican-appointed commissions of English-speaking cardinals and bishops who knew how to take orders from Rome. Soon, Hurley resigned as the South African bishops' representative on the commission."
I do hope the Archbishop is looking down smilingly from heaven on South Africa's "early release" last year of the new ICEL liturgical texts and the ensuing reactions of horror they have received -and rightly so- from the "vox populi!"
Years ago, now Archbishop of
Years ago, now Archbishop of Salvador, Jose Alas,spoke in Portland, Maine, and told of Archbishop Oscar Romero consulting him when Rome objected to his announcement that there would be only one Mass the following Sunday, at the Cathedral, in protest of the assassination of a Salvadoran priest. Romero still thought it the thing to do.
Alas suggested that he pray on it and then act as he thought best: "I heaven, you will have to answer for the peoplel of Salvador, not Rome/the Pope." Romero prayed, stuck to his decision, and pressure on the ruling ARENA crowd increased. Neither could he comprehend or respond to JPII's counsel that he make peace with a government that, as he observed to JPII, "is killing my people." Is there even one Hurley or Romero among the sitting Ordinaries in the U.S. today? If so, it remains a dark secret.
Years ago, now Archbishop of
Years ago, now Archbishop of Salvador, Jose Alas,spoke in Portland, Maine, and told of Archbishop Oscar Romero consulting him when Rome objected to his announcement that there would be only one Mass the following Sunday, at the Cathedral, in protest of the assassination of a Salvadoran priest. Romero still thought it the thing to do.
Alas suggested that he pray on it and then act as he thought best: "I heaven, you will have to answer for the peoplel of Salvador, not Rome/the Pope." Romero prayed, stuck to his decision, and pressure on the ruling ARENA crowd increased. Neither could he comprehend or respond to JPII's counsel that he make peace with a government that, as he observed to JPII, "is killing my people." Is there even one Hurley or Romero among the sitting Ordinaries in the U.S. today? If so, it remains a dark secret.
You state that Archbishop
You state that Archbishop Hurley ”was captured by the social encyclicals of Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI”. That may well be so, but the truth is he favoured the cafeteria approach to papal encyclicals, picking and choosing those which he accepted and those which he didn’t. The obvious one he rejected (presumably being a greater authority than the pope) was the magnificent “Humane Vitae”. Hurley castigated it, revealing his lack of understanding and knowledge of the Catholic faith of all ages. But maybe you Sir, also reject “Humane Vitae” ?
The other fact I remember about this man is his shocking hounding of Father Eldred Lesley, whose only crime was to wish to continue saying the Traditional Latin Mass, which our present Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has confirmed was never banned. Dr Hurley’s behaviour over this sordid affair was the antithesis of Christian charity.
Your answer would be interesting.
ernie
Thank you to Paddy Kearney
Thank you to Paddy Kearney for the Guardian of the light, our dear Bishop Denis Hurley. A man according to the hearts of all people! I will try to get the book as soon as possible!
A truly amazing man and
A truly amazing man and prophet of truth this Denis Hurely. The people of God are indebted to him and I am certain history will judge him a Saint. The history of Vatican II theology continues to evolve as the hundreds of millions of Catholics move further away from an imperial medieval model of the Roman Latin Rite church. A universal church is emerging and John Paul II and Benedict will be regarded as men who feared the remarkable reforms initiated by the Second Vatican Council. The reactionary right wing element was every bit a live during the Council. They tried to stop the progress of the Council fathers at every corner of renewal. The present is one of the darkest periods of Catholicism but I firmly believe the Holy Spirit will guide the People of God toward a church renewal based on Christ and his inclusive ministries. I believe we will eventually see women bishops and priests and even a woman as Bishop of Rome and I don't think it's that far into the future. There is simply not legitimate reason in the Gospels why this will not happen. It must happen if we are equals members of the body of Christ. The absolute power that has corrupted the Church and cause the present system to decay and collapse will be a determining factor in the emerging Church. There will be a day when communion is shared with every Christian including the reformed churches. The church is in it's pre-adolescent stage of growth at present. This will change and as we open the priestly ministry to married persons, female and male, including the offices of bishop, as we abolish the college of cardinals and elect a Bishop of Rome in a more democratic and representational fashion as was once the case, as we develop a healthy and mature understanding of human sexuality, we will see a Catholic Church modeled on Christ instead of ancient imperial Rome.
Where can we find a true
Where can we find a true Christian bishop like Denis Hurley?
I'm afraid you will not have any success "down under" where we are burdened with Vatican yes-men. Their best success seems to be in driving people away from the Church. Let us pray to Father Denis to help us.
It is interesting to read the
It is interesting to read the above comments, honestly written by Christians who love their Church. Where is the leadership in the Church indeed? A good question to ask; however, we are speaking to the choir. Take a look at Church leadership in the US. I do not want to embarass the ordinaries, but really, where is the leadership? It is sad, in this day and age to see these men with their miters parading around like knights and nobles of old. The bigger question that needs to be asked is the following: Is this the Church that Jesus intended? I have my doubts.
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