Obituary
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Archbishop Denis Hurley

A leading figure in the fight against the apartheid regime in South Africa
and a Catholic theologian of independent views

Gerald Shaw
Thursday February 19, 2004
The Guardian

Archbishop Denis Hurley, archbishop emeritus of Durban, crusading South
African churchman and theologian of international stature, was a
courageous opponent of South Africa's apartheid regime for half a century.
He has died aged 88 of a stroke.

After the Afrikaner Nationalist government of DF Malan came to power in
1948, Hurley - Bishop of Natal in the Durban archdiocese from 1947, and
its archbishop from 1952 - was among the first church leaders to denounce
apartheid, condemning the policy as an affront to human dignity. His
sermons, pastoral letters and public addresses cut across conservative
white attitudes and assumptions of racial superiority which had been
formed in the colonial era.

Believing that the key to a solution in South Africa lay in educating
whites, Hurley successfully worked patiently to this end for five decades
against strong opposition. It was in part due to his sustained moral
crusade and that of other churchmen that the transition to democracy, when
it came in 1994, was accepted by white people in peace and good order.

Though an eloquent and forceful preacher, Hurley was mild-mannered and
soft-spoken away from the pulpit. He was a man of formidable intellect, so
much so that he was held in awe by his clergy. He was much loved in the
archdiocese, even if many white Catholics at first found it hard to follow
his lead in questions of social justice.

As a theologian, Hurley was chosen by Pope John XXIII to sit on the 25-
strong central preparatory commission of the Second Vatican Council in
1962. He was prominent among the progressive majority of bishops who
battled against a reluctant Vatican bureaucracy to steer the church in a
reformist direction.

However, his increasingly outspoken opposition to the apartheid regime,
and the theological positions he espoused on birth control, married
priests and the ordination of women were not liked by the Vatican, which
helps explain why he was not given the red hat when South Africa's first
cardinal came to be appointed in 1965. The Vatican preferred Owen McCann,
archbishop of Cape Town, who, though also a staunch opponent of apartheid,
was rather more cautious in his public statements on theological issues.

On the controversial birth control encyclical Humanae Vitae of Pope Paul
VI, Archbishop Hurley took the view that there are situations in which the
use of condoms can be permissible, a view which is highly relevant today
in view of the devastating Aids epidemic sweeping Southern Africa. He
worked tirelessly to raise awareness of the disease.

Denis Hurley was born in Cape Town, the son of a deeply religious Irish
mother. For four years he lived on Robben Island, where his father was a
lighthouse keeper, thus preceding the national leaders imprisoned there,
as he was later able to joke with Nelson Mandela.

He was educated at St Charles College, Pietermaritzburg, before going to
Ireland as a novice in the missionary order of the Oblates of Mary
Immaculate (OMI). Continuing his studies in Rome, Hurley graduated in
theology at the Gregorian College, where he was ordained in 1939.
According to his biographer, Paddy Kearney, his encounters in Rome with
brilliant black students opened Hurley's eyes to the typical white South
African attitudes with which he had grown up.

Returning to South Africa, he was assigned to the Emmanuel Cathedral in
Durban. At the age of 31 he was appointed bishop, and thus the youngest
Catholic bishop in the world. His declaration at his ordination
that "where the spirit is, there is liberty" made his sympathies
unmistakable.

In 1951, his colleagues made him chairman of the Southern African Catholic
Bishops' Conference. In the following year he drafted the first of the
ground-breaking pastoral letters in which the bishops denounced the
apartheid policy as "blasphemy" and "intrinsically evil". The bishops'
teaching was not universally well received by white South African
Catholics, but black people saw the pastoral letters as a sign of hope
that white attitudes could be changed.

Hurley, who was revered by Zulu Christians, became a leading figure among
those who were standing up against the apartheid ideology. Heading the
South African Institute of Race Re lations in 1965-66, he delivered a
magisterial series of presidential addresses to it, urging whites to break
out of their self-imposed isolation.

Always seeking to lead by actions as well as words, he went to the scene
of apartheid removal schemes, offering moral support to the communities
whose homes had fallen under the hammer of the Group Areas Act of 1950 for
living in the "wrong" area.

When individuals were under threat, a visit from the archbishop meant a
great deal, as did his tall, strongly built presence at protest marches
and demonstrations, and at the court appearances of people charged under
the myriad laws aimed at silencing the dissent.

Hurley was himself arrested in October 1984 and charged with "telling
lies" and defaming the police when he exposed the barbaric activities of
the Koevoet security squads in Namibia, but the prosecutor withdrew the
charges the following February when it appeared likely that Hurley would
be able to prove the truth of his statements. He received many death
threats and on one occasion his house was petrol bombed.

After retiring as archbishop in 1992, Hurley became chancellor of the
University of Natal, now part of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, from
1993 to 1998. He continued to work as a priest well into his eighties,
looking after the inner-city poor of the Emmanuel Cathedral parish in
Durban, and living in a humble house next to the cathedral.

· Denis Eugene Hurley, priest, born November 9 1915; died February 13 2004


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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