UNITED STATES
America Magazine
John A. Coleman
A Still and Quiet Conscience
John A. McCoy
Orbis Books. 288p $26
John McCoy, an excellent writer, tells an insider’s account of the public humiliation of Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle. I met Hunthausen on a number of occasions. I always came away with the image of a humble, deeply pastoral and collegial bishop. He was one of my heroes. Bishop William McManus of Fort Wayne told Seattle’s Msgr. Michael Ryan: “Stay with this man and continue to back him. The American hierarchy has produced very few great men. He is one of them!”
McCoy, a former reporter for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and director of public affairs for the Archdiocese of Seattle (in Hunthausen’s last years and also under Hunthausen’s successor), gathered copious interviews and notes on Hunthausen’s pastoral presence as bishop and on the Roman investigation under Cardinal Ratzinger and Archbishop Pio Laghi, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United States. He then let his proposed book on Hunthausen lie fallow in reams of notes on his computer for many years.
Finally, the person of Pope Francis led him to complete his biography. As he says of Francis: “He reminds me in many ways of Hunthausen. He’s humble, kind, compassionate, plain-spoken and unpretentious. He has a Vatican II vision of the church, of a church that is inclusive, loving, transformative, of a church with a heart for the poor and the oppressed.” The Vatican seemed unimpressed that, under Hunthausen’s leadership, Seattle exceeded the national average on Mass attendance, adult conversions to the church and monetary contributions by some 20 percent.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.