By Benita Cotton-Orr
There are people who leave an indelible impression on you. In one sentence, they can inspire you or destroy you. They’re the ones you spend your life proving were wrong. Or right.
You know the people I’m talking about. The mean neighbor who tells you you’ll never amount to anything, so why try? The teacher who tells you that you can go anywhere you want; don’t be held back by where you come from.
Ross Cuthbertson was one of those people. A single, young, white man who moved into the impoverished “coloured” community of Wentworth, Durban, during South Africa’s apartheid era to become the parish priest for St. Gabriel’s Anglican Church.
He raised a village – Wentworth was indeed called “the village” – and took under his wing some of the community’s most rambunctious boys. With only the rare disappointment, he mentored them into stellar young men and pillars of the community. His example became a foundation for many from this impoverished community who went on to become warriors – for God, and for liberty and justice for all in an era of government oppression. I dare say more parish priests, church leaders and leaders came out of St. Gabriel’s than any church in the nation. And they were – are – fiery. Errol “Pepsi” Narain. George. Cierigh. Mervyn. Lloyd. Rubin. To name a few.
Father Cuthbertson rarely smiled, but when he did, it was like the sun had peeked from behind the clouds to light your day. With a twinkle in his eye but no outward sign of enjoying the simmering feud, he would referee the competition between Mother’s Union and Ladies’ Guild like a pro tennis umpire. Under his stern eye, the street gang “corner boys” cowered and Sunday service congregations hushed.
“Just wait until I tell Father Cuthbertson,” was a phrase none of us wanted to hear from our mothers. We’d choose a beating from our parents over a withering look from Father Cuthbertson any day.
He took the church youth group on retreats. We relished the rare escapes from a community where most parents couldn’t afford to take their children anywhere but a day trip to the beach. I remember misty mornings at Koinonia Christian camp. On one trip, we short-sheeted his bed as a joke … or did we dust it with baby powder … or both? I’m sure my traveling companions will remind me!
He served me my first Holy Communion. He presided over my confirmation. He heard my confession, even though he was probably wise to my “ … and all my other sins” line.
He conducted my marriage. It was soon after the Royal wedding of Charles and Diana, and he quickly disavowed me of my suggestion that I could follow Diana’s lead with personalized wedding vows. Why should I be the only one in the relationship to “cherish and obey”? (I resolved this by “nixing” it, mentally crossing my fingers as I recited the line at the ceremony. Sorry, Father!)
A half-century after I left Wentworth, a flood of memories came rushing back this week as I read the tributes on social media to this great man, who went to meet his Maker on Easter Sunday, April 17, 2022.
In my first post on this new website, as I turn a page to start a new chapter after two successful careers, I think back on Father Cuthbertson’s influence on my young life. It’s a poignant reminder of the significance of legacy and the life-changing impact words can have.
What was his indelible impression on me, you ask?
It was something he told me after my (mandatory) confession, just before my confirmation.
“You will become a leader in the community,” Father Cuthbertson told me solemnly.
I took what he said personally, even though it took a long time to resonate with me. After all, what hope did one have as a second-class citizen in apartheid-era South Africa?
He may have said that to every person who knelt with him before God that day. With no evidence that such a thing could ever actually take place, this young teenager left confession – “ … and all my other sins” – with hope in her heart and a spring in her step, to take her place in the community.
Today, that community is far from where I began.
Today, the Wentworth I left behind celebrates the life of Bishop Ross Cuthbertson, who arrived as a young priest in his twenties the 1970s to start St. Gabriel’s journey, as Clint Leverton put it, “from the one-roomed beginnings in K1 to the Blue Doors in Goshen Road to the current premises at 170 Austerville Drive.”
He started a church, and he launched a Renaissance. The seeds of virtue he planted in his Father’s name continue to grow, bear fruit and multiply, not just in struggling, blue-collar community of Wentworth, but in families spread across the globe.
Today, Ross Cuthbertson is home. And his Father said in welcoming him, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”
Benita Cotton-Orr launched High Grounds Consulting Inc. in March 2022 after a 19-year career in public policy that followed 14 years in journalism.
©April 20, 2022
