Last year's meeting of the national conference of Catholic Bishops, held in November in Washington, D.C., was supposed to have focused on the bishops' pastoral letter on economic justice. The meeting dwelt, instead, on the predicament of Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen. This focus resulted principally from the secular news media's presentation of the Hunthausen affair, a relatively minor disciplinary matter, as a full-blown crisis.
The presentation successfully framed the issue in alien terms that most Catholics and even many bishops accepted. In distorting this case, the media showed once again that they simply do not understand the Catholic Church.
Hunthausen is no stranger to controversy. An outspoken advocate of nuclear disarmament, he won headlines in 1982 by announcing that thenceforth he would withhold half of his federal income taxes, the amount that he judged went to maintain the nation's nuclear arsenal. He has regularly participated in demonstrations supporting a nuclear freeze and protesting Reagan administration policies.
On internal church matters, he has been no less controversial. Since arriving in Seattle in 1975, Hunthausen has provoked a steady flow of complaints to Rome from Catholics unhappy with his alleged laxity in enforcing church teaching. Critics accused him, among other things, of sanctioning sterilizations in a Catholic hospital, unacceptably altering the liturgy, and allowing the local chapter of Dignity, a militant homosexual Catholic group, to celebrate Mass in his cathedral.
Complaints became so numerous that in 1983 the Vatican sent an investigative team led by James Hickey, archbishop of Washington, D.C., to examine the charges. The panel issued its report earlier this year, and after lengthy discussion with Hunthausen the Vatican announced in October that it had transferred the archbishop's authority over five key doctrinal areas to a newly appointed auxiliary bishop, Donald Wuerl. Vatican officials denied that Hunthausen's political activities were involved, though the archbishop's liberal supporters thought they knew better.
Hurt and angered by the punishment, Hunthausen complained that Vatican investigators did not allow him to read the final report or to confront his accusers. He declared some of the charges to be wholly false, stated that some abuses had already been corrected, and acknowledged others but argued that they were common practice in many other dioceses as well.
Last-ditch appeal
In a last-ditch appeal for support, Hunthausen took his case to the U.S. bishops, asking them to intercede for him with Rome. After two days of intense discussion - and equally intense media speculation - the bishops voted to cast their lot with the Vatican. Bishop James Malone of Youngstown, Ohio, the outgoing president of the Conference of Bishops, stated, "the decision reached at the end of the process was made by proper church authorities. As such, it deserves our respect and confidence."
Many bishops expressed displeasure at Rome's treatment of Hunthausen. Even last summer's dispute over the right of dissident theologian Charles Curran to teach Catholic theology at a
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