affiliated with Trinity College Dublin.
Following his undergraduate studies in classics at University College
Dublin and the study of Scholastic philosophy in the Jesuit program of
formation, Hurley proceeded to Louvain in Belgium for his theology.
He found there a genuinely ecumenical approach to theology, not
least in bibliographical references in the various theology courses to
Protestant and Orthodox authors. This was especially the case with
one of his professors, George Dejaifve, SJ, who was very sympathetic
to the growing ecumenical movement.
In 1954, Hurley was ordained a priest by Léon-Joseph Suenens, later
to be the cardinal-archbishop of Malines and one of the leaders of the
Second Vatican Council. His ecumenical appetite had been whetted
and he went on to study for a doctorate in theology, awarded
by Rome’s Gregorian University in 1961. During his time at the
Gregorian, he attended a lecture by the famous Anglican ecumenist
Bishop George Bell. Bell had been for many years one of the leading
advocates of the ecumenical movement which, of course, had been
greatly energized after the inception of the World Council of Churches
in Amsterdam in 1948. Hurley’s doctoral thesis was on “Sola Scriptura
and John Wyclif.”3
Hurley returned to Ireland to teach at the Jesuit theology faculty
of Milltown Park, Dublin. In 1959, the faculty made the decision to
hold public lectures in theology, something rather unusual at the
time. Hurley suggested as one of the topics “Christian unity.” Since no
one on the faculty appeared to have any expertise in this area, it fell
to him. From that time, he says, “I was never allowed to look back.”4
The lecture was delivered on March 9, 1960, and the title was “The
Ecumenical Movement.”5
His first “outside” ecumenical invitation came from th