Desmond Tutu, the ‘moral compass’ of South Africa, honored at funeral

CAPE TOWN, South Africa —  Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu was remembered at his funeral Saturday for his Nobel Peace Prize-earning role in ending South Africa’s apartheid regime of racial oppression and for championing the rights of LGBTQ people.

“When we were in the dark, he brought light,” Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the head of the worldwide Anglican church, said in a video message shown at a requiem Mass celebrated for Tutu at St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town.

“For me to praise him is like a mouse giving tribute to an elephant,” Welby said. “South Africa has given us extraordinary examples of towering leaders of the rainbow nation with President Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu. ... Many Nobel winners’ lights have grown dimmer over time, but Archbishop Tutu’s has grown brighter.”

Tutu died last Sunday at age 90. His small plain pine coffin, the cheapest available at his request to avoid any ostentatious displays, was the center of the service, which also featured African choirs, prayers and incense.

“Archbishop Desmond Tutu has been our moral compass and national conscience,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, who delivered the funeral eulogy, said. “Even after the advent of democracy, he did not hesitate to draw attention, often harshly, to our shortcomings as leaders of the democratic state.”

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Desmond Tutu held moral sway over much of Africa. But not with his advocacy for LGBTQ rights

The late archbishop’s campaign against apartheid drew worldwide respect, but his efforts to fight homophobia had limited impact on his home continent.

Ramaphosa handed a national flag to Tutu’s widow, Leah, as she sat in a wheelchair.

The cathedral can hold 1,200 worshippers, but only 100 mourners were allowed to attend the funeral because of COVID-19 restrictions.

A few hundred people braved stormy weather to watch the service on a large screen in front of Cape Town City Hall. The municipal government building is where Tutu held hands aloft with Nelson Mandela on the day in 1990 when Mandela was released after serving 27 years in prison because of his opposition to apartheid.

Michael Nuttall, the retired bishop of Natal, delivered the sermon. Nuttall called his relationship with Tutu “an unlikely partnership at a truly critical time in the life of our country from 1989 through 1996, he as archbishop of Cape Town and I as his deputy,” With humor, he described himself as “No. 2 to Tutu.”

“Our partnership struck a chord, perhaps, in the hearts and minds of many people: a dynamic Black leader and his white deputy in the dying years of apartheid,” Nuttall continued. “And hey, presto, the heavens did not collapse. We were a foretaste, if you like, of what could be in our wayward, divided nation.”

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Young South Africans learn of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s activism for equality

Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s legacy reverberates among young South Africans, many of whom were not born when he battled apartheid and sought rights for the Black majority.

Two of Tutu’s daughters, Mpho and Nontombi, both church ministers, participated in the service along with former Irish President Mary Robinson and Graca Machel, the widow of two African presidents, Samora Machel of Mozambique and Nelson Mandela.

The cathedral’s bells rang as Tutu’s casket was taken away after the funeral for a private cremation. His ashes are to be interred at the cathedral.

In the days before the funeral, several thousand people paid their respects to Tutu by filing by his casket in the cathedral and signing condolence books.