Background
HURLEY, Michael was born on May 10, 1923 in Ardmore, Company Waterford. Son of Johanna Foley and Martin Hurley.
ecumenical theologian and ecclesiastic
HURLEY, Michael was born on May 10, 1923 in Ardmore, Company Waterford. Son of Johanna Foley and Martin Hurley.
Mount Melleray Seminary, Cappoquin, University College, Dublin, Jesuit Theological Faculty, Louvain, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome.
Hurley co-founded the Irish School of Ecumenics in 1970 and served as the school"s director until 1980. He received a doctorate in theology from Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. Hurley taught at the former Mungret College from 1958 to 1970.
Hurley worked to good relations between different Christian denominations in Ireland, Northern Ireland and abroad.
His work at the school was opposed by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, the then conservative Archbishop of Dublin. Archbishop McQuaid died in 1973.
His successor, Archbishop Dermot Ryan, remained opposed to Hurley and the Irish School of Ecumenics. Hurley later said in an interview, "Archbishop Ryan, became somewhat unhappy with and with myself in particular, because, although I’m called after the archangel, I’m no angel.
I’ve never quite managed to be angelic, much less archangelic, in my behaviour.
So towards the end of the school’s first decade it seemed best to remove myself from the scene. After that the school’s relationship with the Catholic archdiocese did improve." Hurley stepped down as director of the Irish School of Ecumenics in 1980 and relations with the Archdiocese of Dublin began to improve. Hurley co-founded the Columbanus Community of Reconciliation, located on Antrim Road in Belfast, in 1983.
Father Hurley received honorary doctorates from Queen"s University Belfast in 1993 and Trinity College, Dublin in 1995.
Hurley’s daring alliance of faith with intellect and institutional creativity has challenged the religious and the non-religious to take seriously the role of religion in healing the contemporary world."
In 2008, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin apologised to Father Hurley for his treatment by the late Archbishop John Charles McQuaid during the establishment of the Irish School of Ecumenics in the 1960s and 1970s. Father Hurley called it a "magnanimous apology."
Father Michael Hurley died in Dublin on April 15, 2011, at the age of 87.