WASHINGTON
Seattle PI
Posted on April 20, 2015 | By Joel Connelly
Pope Francis would have enjoyed Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, when he moved out of the bishop’s mansion, when he drove his sprawling diocese in an old VW bug, and when he preached a guileless Gospel.
The problem for Hunthausen came in that he embodied the reformist Second Vatican Council at a time (the 1980′s) when icy, careerist authoritarians were reasserting top-down control of the Roman Catholic Church.
In John McCoy’s excellent new book, “A Still and Quiet Conscience: The Archbishop Who Challenged a Pope, a President and a Church” (Orbis Books, $26), clashing views of Catholicism are captured in conversation.
McCoy was ideally situated to watch Hunthausen’s intended humiliation. The author served as religion reporter for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and later communications director for the Seattle archdiocese.
Authoritarian Cardinal Josef Ratzinger rebukes Hunthausen for allowing the gay Catholic group Dignity to use St. James Cathedral. The Seattle archbishop replies by evoking John 8:11 in which the Pharisees bring to Jesus a woman caught in adultery and demand that she be stoned to death. Fireworks follow:
“Hunthausen was recounting the Gospel story when Ratzinger, his voice full of wrath, interrupted him. ‘Are you presuming to lecture me?’” he demanded.
“The archbishop paused, caught his breath and quietly continued. In regard to Dignity, he explained, ‘I tried to do what I thought Jesus would do. Jesus didn’t wait until people changed before he talked to them. He began a dialogue and I think that’s what they church ought to do with the gay community.’
“Infuriated, Ratzinger silenced him again. ‘Don’t preach to me,’” he said.
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