Tutu’s visit thrills priest who served with him

The world knows Desmond Tutu of South Africa as a passionate fighter for justice and human dignity, and as a religious leader who has worked rigorously for peace within his nation and for people everywhere.

To the Rev. Walter Brownridge, dean of the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Hono­lulu, Tutu is a loving friend, "a great teaser" and a father figure whose approval is the most highly prized.

"In my opinion, Desmond Tutu is the greatest Christian witness to love, compassion, justice and reconciliation of his generation," said Brownridge, who extended the invitation to the archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa, and 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner to Hawaii for several events this weekend.

Brownridge, who was an Episcopal priest at St. George’s Cathedral from 2003 to 2006 in Cape Town, got to know Tutu well when he assisted Tutu with the early morning Eucharist service once a week. In 1986, Tutu became the first black person to be named archbishop, the highest position in the Anglican Church in South Africa. He retired 10 years later.

"One of the great joys of my three years there were the Fridays, most Fridays," Brownridge said in an interview. "It was a tradition that a small group would have breakfast with him. He would joke with us — that’s when I got to be a friend. You know he’s a friend when he teases and plays with you; that’s when he feels comfortable.

"He’s very loving. He always says ‘dear son,’ ‘dear daughter’ or ‘dear child.’ He puts you at ease.

"He’s very much a human being, (but) you cannot help but know you are in the presence of someone who is indeed very holy. It’s not a piety; his holiness is because he can see God in the most common things, and yet he does have a very disciplined prayer practice." Brownridge said that whenever Tutu travels and whoever he is with, "he has a little Mass with bread and wine," and "he says prayers so deeply."

In a trailer of a documentary about Tutu, "Just Call Me Arch," "There’s this wonderful quote at the end," Brownridge said. "He says that in life there’s a beginning, a middle and an end … and that he tries to dance in tune with the one who makes the music, who is God. To me that is what makes him special; like other great spiritual leaders, they have this connection to the one who makes the music."

He described Tutu has a man small in stature, but "everyone looks up to him, like a father figure. He has the ability to command authority, and you don’t want to disappoint him. People like myself … feel like they want to tell him how they’re doing; you want his approval that you’re doing OK. I think people do it because it feels like God’s approval."

Brownridge said he invited Tutu to speak in Hawaii because "I just love the man," and that he hoped his appearance would energize the community and his congregation in particular to become agents of reconciliation.

Brownridge said he was hired last year to encourage St. Andrew’s "to be a tower of reconciliation, bringing together the whole community. Hopefully the cathedral can be a place that can bridge divisions and lessen the hostilities among us."

Africans have a word, "ubuntu," for the belief that "a person is a person only through other persons" — that human beings must care for one another to thrive, he said. The ubuntu philosophy is similar to the Christian concept of loving one’s neighbors, and the open-hearted Hawaiian concept of the aloha spirit, he added.

Tutu wrote a book about South Africans titled "The Rainbow People of God," and "you could use that to describe Hawaii," with its multicolored population and wide range of religions and ethnicities, Brownridge said.

Last May pro-Israeli groups protested Tutu’s appearance at the Hawai‘i Convention Center, where he was the principal speaker for an international American Psychiatric Association meeting. Tutu has been criticized for, among other accusations, likening Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the segregational policies of apartheid, according to media reports.

Brownridge said, "The archbishop is not anti-Semitic or anti-Israel. He is for the dignity of all human beings, including those Palestinians suffering under the system. Whether Christian or Muslim, their plight resonates with what he has experienced in South Africa."

Many South Africans who have lived under apartheid, which legalized the unequal, inferior treatment of black people, say they have witnessed conditions in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories that are extremely similar, he said.

Tutu has made "many efforts to bridge understanding between Christians and Jews everywhere," and is meeting with interfaith leaders at a service Sunday at St. Andrew’s, Brownridge said.

Tutu is chairman of The Elders, an independent group of international leaders who promote causes related to human rights. When apartheid was abolished in 1994, Tutu was appointed chairman of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate apartheid-era crimes.