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	Bishop Spoke out about Politics, Church Doctrine By Virginia Culver Denver Post June 22, 2008 http://origin.denverpost.com/news/ci_9654673 Charles Buswell was not a predictable Catholic bishop: He believed women should be ordained, was arrested for protesting the Vietnam War and often volunteered in soup kitchens. Buswell, who was bishop of the Pueblo Diocese from 1959 until 1979, died June 14. He was 94. Buswell "never espoused to be important," said retired Colorado Springs Bishop Richard Hanifen. Buswell and other demonstrators were held only a short time after being arrested for protesting the Vietnam War and charges were dropped. But Buswell didn't drop the issue and continued marching against the war. "He was ahead of most other bishops in coming out against the war," said retired Denver priest Patrick Kennedy. Volunteers at soup kitchens often didn't know that Buswell, dressed in casual slacks and a knit shirt, was a bishop. He told a reporter once, "I'm just a spare tire here" (at the soup kitchen). "I just do whatever they tell me to do." In 1994, when Pope John Paul II said there would be no further discussions about women in the priesthood, Buswell said, "I really think we're guilty of some sort of sexism if we refuse to allow women to be priests." In 1995 he signed a statement, along with 39 other Catholic bishops throughout the country, that said the Vatican and U.S. bishops "have a credibility problem," alleging that church leaders refused to discuss some of the church's most pressing issues: pedophile priests, rights of women, abortion and contraception. He called the Second Vatican Council, a three-year meeting in the mid-1960s that modernized the church, a "dynamic organism to penetrate the world with the spirit of truth and light, not a static remnant of the past." Buswell was more than a critic. He loved to tell stories on himself, once telling a Denver Post reporter that an Oklahoma friend called him "the accidental ecclesiastic." He also liked to tell about visiting a parish in the Pueblo Diocese and attending a potluck dinner in the basement before the Mass. A preschool-age girl was wandering around visiting with people. She stopped and asked Buswell his name. "Charlie," he replied. Later, the little girl was on the aisle in the nave watching the long procession, with choir, flags, candles, priests, and Buswell in an elaborate robe and mitre. When Buswell walked by her, the little girl reached out and pulled on his robe and said, "Nice show, Charlie." "He was a gentle person who led a simple life and always advocated for the poor and the immigrants," said his successor, Bishop Arthur Tafoya. "He loved being a priest. He was such a gentleman." Charles A. Buswell was born in Homestead, Okla., on Oct. 15, 1913, and studied at St. Benedict's College in Atchison, Kan.; St. Louis Preparatory Seminary, Webster Grove, Mo.; Kenrick Seminary in St. Louis; and the American College in Louvain, Belgium. Ordained in 1939, he was pastor of Christ the King Church in Oklahoma. In 1959 Pope John XXIII named him bishop of Pueblo. Buswell is survived by several nieces, nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews. Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
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