Adrian Hastings
| Adrian Hastings | |
|---|---|
| Born |
23 June 1929 Kuala Lumpur, Malaya |
| Died | 30 May 2001 (aged 71) Leeds. England |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Priest, church historian, author |
| Known for | Book on the "Wiriyamu massacre" |
Adrian Hastings (23 June 1929 – 30 May 2001) was a Roman Catholic priest, historian and author. He wrote a book about the "Wiriyamu massacre" during the Mozambican War of Independence.
Hastings, a grandson of George Woodyatt Hastings, was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya, but his mother moved to England to bring up the children when he was little more than a baby. He was educated at Douai School (1943–46) and Worcester College, Oxford (1946–49). In his final year at Oxford, Hastings discerned a missionary vocation. He joined the White Fathers but later left the order to become a secular priest in the Diocese of Masaka, Uganda.
Hastings studied theology at the Collegium Urbanum, the college of the Congregation of Propaganda in Rome. He was ordained in 1955 and awarded a doctorate in 1958. His lifelong association with The Tablet dates from this period. In 1958 he also obtained a teaching degree from Christ's College, Cambridge and in 1959 he took up his priestly functions in Uganda.
In Uganda, Hastings served in pastoral and teaching functions and was charged with interpreting the documents of the Second Vatican Council to priests in Africa. His notes on these documents were later published. He also agitated for a relaxation of the discipline of clerical celibacy in the African context, attributing the low numbers of African clergy to the cultural alienness of this requirement.
In 1966, after bouts of malaria, Hastings returned to England and became active in ecumenical dialogue through the preparatory commission of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission. He was also commissioned by a number of Anglican dioceses in Africa to prepare a report on Christian and customary marriage. From 1972 to 1976 Hastings was on the staff of an ecumenical missionary school, the College of the Ascension in Selly Oak, Birmingham. In 1973 Hastings brought the massacres carried out by the Portuguese army during the Mozambican War of Independence to world attention, first in The Times and later at the United Nations. He created a controversy in 1973 with an article in The Times about the "Wiriyamu massacre", in the Portuguese-ruled overseas territory of Mozambique, revealing that the Portuguese army had massacred some 400 villagers at the village of Wiriyamu, near Tete, in December 1972. His report was printed a week before the Portuguese prime minister, Marcelo Caetano, was due to visit Britain to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance.
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