Fr Denis Basil Scully s.m. BSc, Marist Messenger, 30 September 2014, https://www.maristmessenger.co.nz/2014/09/30/fr-denis-basil-scully-s-m-bsc/, accessed on 4 January 2026:

What follows is a tribute given by Fr J O‘Neill sm at Dennis’ funeral at the Sacred Heart Cathedral on 5 August 2014.

I feel privileged to honour Fr Dennis Basil Scully SM BSc. For me he was a confrere, a colleague and a friend. He was also yours and also in some cases a relative. His friends called him ’Dennis’. I will do that.

Dennis was from Christchurch, the youngest of 11 children in the Scully family. They all pre-deceased him. One of his older brothers was Fr Morris Scully.

The Scully family belonged to the Cathedral parish in Christchurch. Dennis was an altar server as were his brothers before him. Dennis, however, was the one chosen to serve the bishop’s Mass and to be on the Cathedral’s episcopal ceremonies.

At St Bede’s College, Dennis was a remarkable student. In those days we sat an exam called ‘Public Service’ in form 4 or 5. (That translates to Year 10 or 11 for you modern listeners). The results when published ranked all candidates from throughout New Zealand. Dennis got top of New Zealand – came out number one- a remarkable achievement. I have to report that I came 121 when I sat Public Service. Handwriting was part of the exam and, if you had seen my handwriting either then or now, you would see why.

Dennis entered Greenmeadows seminary in 1942 a difficult time. Japanese armies had invaded the Western pacific and were on the edges of Australia. Next it might be New Zealand. New Zealand suffered blackouts, rationing and other shortages. In 1943 Dennis and I and 10 others were novices at Highden in the Manawatu. These twelve hungry active young men found wartime food rationing hard to take. But Highden farm was plagued by rabbits. Our Novice Master Con O’Connor put one of Dennis’s many skills to double use. He was a crack rifle shot. Besides doing all the things novices have to do, Denis improved the menus with plentiful rabbit meat and, at the same time, helped free the farm from rabbit ravages.

At this time the war was brought home to us when Highden became the refuge for several missionaries who had been evacuated from the Solomon Islands in the face of the Japanese invasion. Some of these were elderly Frenchmen.Dennis remained quite a scholar. He had come to us from St Bedes with a love of classical Latin and he became our resident Latin expert. He had studied Virgil’s Georgics at St Bedes. It is a poem about farming in ancient Rome and has a long section on beekeeping. So it is not surprising that our Novice master Fr Con O’Connor appointed him to look after the Highden bee hives.

Resident at Highden at that time was an elderly Latin Scholar, Fr Frank Bartley, totally deaf. He and Dennis would share Latin sayings, Dennis in writing. One encounter between these two has stuck in my mind. Fr Bartley was late for a meal, when he saw what was left he said to Dennis ‘Tarde venientibus, ossa’ which means ‘latecomers get the bones.’ Dennis replied ‘Quae super sunt, porcis do.’ ‘I give the leftovers to the pigs’, the next line from the same poem by Horace.

Dennis was professed in 1944 and ordained in 1949.

His first appointment was to St Patricks College in Wellington. In those days St Pats had no groundsman, no cleaners, no caretaker, no lab technicians. The staff did all those things as well as teaching. I learned this quickly when I joined him at St Pats. Like the rest of New Zealand St Pats was recovering from the war. It needed someone like Dennis.

Dennis was required to teach science, not classics. In addition to being full time teacher he coached a rugby team, took his turn as chaplain to the Island Bay Home of Compassion and was, for a time, chaplain to the Catholic Tramping Club. While doing all these other things he attended Victoria University and gained a science degree.

After 10 years at St Pats, Dennis was appointed to other Marist colleges, including a term as rector of St Pats High Schools Timaru.

When age began to catch up, he became assistant in various parishes. He spent three years on exchange in England. His final parish was Akaroa for 7 years. Then he retired to Mary Potter Courts in Christchurch – but became their unappointed chaplain. His final 4 years was in retirement, first at Marian Court, Silverstream, and when mobility became a problem, he moved to the nearby Home of Compassion at Silverstream. He was very grateful for the care he received from the community at Marian Court and the careers at the Home of Compassion where he died as peacefully as he had lived there at 7.45 am on Wednesday July 30 aged 90.

Dennis, my friend, I am sure you heard the words, ‘well done good and faithful servant’. Rest in peace now after 90 years of labours for the Lord.

Moe mai ki te Atua. Moe mai.