During the council, Hurley wrote a series of anonymous articles for the South African Catholic weekly newspaper "The Southern Cross". In 2001 he wrote a 17-part series of memories of Vatican II for "The Southern Cross". In recounting its informal cycle of lectures, workshops and long evenings of debates over dinner with interested members of the clergy and laity, Hurley observed that the presence of so many scholars who had been called to Rome to assist with the work of Vatican II had created "the greatest project of adult education ever held in the world." These articles provided the basis for his posthumously published memoirs of the Council, "Keeping the Dream Alive".