Oblate News

Honouring South Africa’s late social justice activist Archbishop Denis Hurley

Bernard Purcell (Editor of the Irish World Newspaper) with Sam Blake and Simon Trewin (photo: Sarah Finucane)

The late South African Archbishop, and social justice and anti-apartheid campaigner, Denis Hurley of the Order of Mary Immaculate or OMI (1915-2004) was archbishop of Durban from 1951 until 1992.

Born in Cape Town to Irish emigrant parents, he spent his early years on Robben Island – site of the jail in which Nelson Mandela and others were imprisoned – when his father was lighthouse keeper there.

At the time of his appointment as a bishop in 1946, aged 31, he was the youngest Catholic bishop in the world and, subsequently, became the youngest Archbishop.

Brian Gill and Father Simon Buckley (photo: Sarah Finucane)

He courageously led the Church to condemn apartheid as a blasphemy, an abomination and “intrinsically evil”, and was a robust supporter of the progressive reforms of Vatican Two.

He believed the Church had a duty to lead people to be “human beings first of all, then Christians, then saints” and to be “a community serving humanity”. He dedicated his life to the poor, the abandoned and the down-trodden. He had a vision of the Church on the margins, reaching out to welcome those who are often ignored.

There is not enough space this week to detail all of his campaigns, achievements and legacy whilst still have space to run the photographs of the recent event at South African House in London in his honour, as well as that of the association set up to continue his work. But we will do that in another issue.

Bried and Michael Coffey with Catherine Murphy (photo: Sarah Finucane)

Hurley died as he was being driven back to the Oblate retirement community in Durban after a celebration of the 50^th anniversary of a school, at whose dedication he had presided as a young archbishop.

The Denis Hurley Association was launched ten years ago in 2012 at Archbishop’s House, Westminster, and up to last December had raised at least £250,000 towards the operation the Denis Hurley Centre in Durban which includes a primary health care clinic. Its patrons have included the late Baroness Shirley Williams and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor.

Cllr Kennedy Rodrigues, Kirk Jacobsm Father Johnson, Emma Murphy O’Connor and John Greene (photo: Sarah Finucane)

Current patrons include the outgoing South African High Commissioner Nomatemba Tambo (whose late father Oliver Tambo established, with his partner Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black law practice); Fr Oliver Barry OMI (Provincial Anglo-Irish Province of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate); Lord Brian Gill (former Lord Justice General of Scotland and occasional Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom); Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham; Sir Iqbal Sacranie, former Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Great Britain; and former Bishop of Galloway Maurice Taylor.

The event, hosted by High Commissioner Tambo, was to say thank you to past, present and future supporters of the UK registered charity.

All the money raised by the Denis Hurley Association goes directly to its work with some of the very poorest people in Durban.

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