WASHINGTON
Seattle Times

By Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporter

In November, the priest at Assumption Catholic Church in North Seattle mailed a letter of welcome to parishioners, including members long dormant — those divorced and remarried, gay, tired or simply disillusioned.

“We are living in exciting times,” Father Oliver Duggan told them. “Our church, which so many had written off as not relevant in this time and age, has suddenly come to life.”

For this he credited Pope Francis for not only inspiring his own pastoral work but for breathing new life into the Roman Catholic Church. While the new pontiff hasn’t changed church teachings, the father wrote, “he has been applying those teachings in a loving and caring way.”

A year after Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio stepped onto the balcony at St. Peter’s Basilica to present himself to the world as Pope Francis, Duggan’s words stand as…