Wayne Hankey

Wayne John Hankey (born 1944) is a Canadian religious philosopher.

Early life and education[]

Hankey was raised in Lower Sackville Nova Scotia. He studied Classics, philosophy, and theology at University of King's College, Dalhousie University, Trinity College, the University of Toronto, and Oxford University.

During his time as a student at King's, Hankey was a founder of the King's Student Union and one of its first presidents.

Career[]

Hankey spent several years conducting research in Rome and Paris and has held research positions at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and Boston College. In 1981 he completed his doctoral studies in Theology at the University of Oxford, St. Peter’s College, with his thesis “The Structure of the first forty-five Questions of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae” and was later ordained a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada. For many years until his eventual defrocking, Hankey was a staunch opponent against the modernization of the Anglican Church.^[2]

In 1965 he was first hired by Dalhousie University to teach second-year Greek, and he would continue to teach university classes for more than 45 years, including four years at York University.^[3] After initiating the Foundation Year Program at King's, he was the program's first director between 1972 - 1978. He also designed and spearheaded the development and subsequent construction of the university's new library during his time as Librarian of the College (1981–1993). He was responsible for the creation of the Religious Studies Programme at Dalhousie University and for seven years until 2015 chaired the Department of Classics with Religious Studies and Arabic.

Hankey has published four books and edited seven volumes. His first monograph, God in himself : Aquinas' doctrine of God as expounded in the "Summa theologiae" treated the Neoplatonic sources and structure of the doctrine of God in the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas and was published by Oxford University Press in 1987; OUP republished it in 2000 in its series "Oxford Scholarly Classics." According to WorldCat, the book is held in 552 libraries ^[4] Since his book entitled One Hundred Years of Neoplatonism in France: A Brief Philosophical History he has published three jointly edited volumes and has in press "Aquinas' Neoplatonism in the Summa Theologiae on God. A Short Introduction", South Bend, Indiana, St Augustine's Press. He has published almost one hundred academic articles and reviews, and has produced many journalistic, theological, and devotional publications and addresses. Since 1997, he has been Secretary and Editor of Dionysius.

Following his retirement, Hankey was appointed as Professor Emeritus in Classics at Dalhousie University and taught one evening seminar each academic term, prior to February 2021 when he agreed to step down from the course in light of criminal accusations.^[5]

Legal history[]

1990—91: Allegations of impropriety[]

In 1990 David Harris, who graduated from King's in 1981 and was then an editor for the Chronicle Herald, made an official complaint to both the University of King's College and the Anglican Diocese of Nova Scotia alleging sexual impropriety by Hankey dating from the 1970s during his time as an undergraduate. Harris was 32 at the time of the accusation and the abuses were alleged to have happened when he was a teenager, although it is unclear whether he was a minor. The accusation was made only before the Anglican Diocese and the college; it was not a criminal complaint, and did not involve police or the provincial courts.

The ecclesiastical court, appointed by Bishop Arthur Peters and made up of two priests and a layman, convened in August 1991, and finding Harris' claims credible convicted Hankey on charges of sexual immorality. Hankey was deprived of ecclesiastical duties, and although he remained a priest in the Anglican church he no longer had any authority to function as one, as he was suspended from practicing any office related to the priesthood or from receiving any benefits of such office.^[6] The ecclesiastical court ordered this suspension to hold for an appointed period of two years, during which time Hankey would attend compulsory counselling until such time that he was deemed fit to resume ecclesiastical office—and if not, face defrocking. Hankey refused these rulings however, and converted to Roman Catholicism, so the threat of defrocking was no longer an issue.^[7]

In separate proceedings, Hankey was faulted by a King's College disciplinary committee and suspended from the university for one year (the sentence was to take place one year following the committee's ruling, when Hankey was scheduled to return from a year's sabbatical).^[8] Hankey resumed his role at King's in 1993, and he became a full professor at Dalhousie in 1996.

Earlier allegations[]

Prior to the allegations made in 1991, Hankey faced some scrutiny at King's due to an incident alleged to have occurred in 1983, when it became known that a security guard had found a professor of the college and a male student nude in the university's swimming pool. Reports at the time allege that a page in the security log had been removed, and there was widespread feeling that university president John Godfrey, a close friend of Hankey's, had silently swept the matter under the carpet.^[9] No official action was taken against Hankey following this incident.

2021: Sexual assault charges[]

In response to a report made to Halifax Regional Police in September 2020, on February 1 the following year Wayne Hankey was charged with sexual assault related to an incident with a male student in 1988.^[10][11][12] The incident occurred in student housing on the University of King’s College campus. Hankey was an employee of the university at the time of the incident, and was living in residence.^[13]

Following an advisory email sent to students and faculty on February 1, university president sent an email to alumni saying that the prominent portrait of Hankey, which had been installed in the King's College Library for his retirement party in 2017, was removed in October 2020 and returned to Hankey. It is not known whether this decision was made by the university based on foreknowledge of the impending criminal charges.

Bibliography[]

• God in Himself, Aquinas' Doctrine of God as Expounded in the Summa Theologiae, Oxford Theological Monographs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 196 pages. (Reprinted in 2000 for the Oxford Scholarly Classics series).
• Pantokrator, the Cosmic Christ: A Theology of Nature. (Charlottetown: St. Peter's Publications, Inc., 2005).
• Aquinas’ Neoplatonism in the Summa Theologiae on God. A Short Introduction. (South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s Press, 2019).

References[]

External links[]