Honoring the Feminist Archbishop

Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, 1987

Few church leaders embraced Vatican II like Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, who as a young bishop attended all four conciliar sessions and returned to the U.S. with a prophetic vision for implementing the Council’s teachings. Sadly, he passed away earlier this week at age 96.

Hunthausen advocated for oppressed persons everywhere. He protested nuclear weapons as a tax resistor, welcomed lesbian and gay Catholics to Seattle’s cathedral, established diocesan policies to address clergy sexual abuse as far back as 1988, addressed divorced and remarried Catholics with compassion, encouraged better youth catechesis, and supported the first stages of Call to Action. He was also a strident advocate for women.

Hunthausen became convinced of the need to ordain women while attending a retreat for priests. Writing of this moment, the archbishop’s former spokesperson John McCoy shared:

“In Seattle and elsewhere, Catholic leadership asked itself how best to include women in the full life of the church. Hunthausen participated in a priests’ retreat in which the retreat master extoled the mystery and magnificence of the priesthood and how grateful priests should be that God had called them to this wonderful ministry.

“‘All of a sudden it crossed my mind,’ the archbishop recalled. ‘I cannot believe in a God who has instituted a priesthood that is this magnificent and then denied it to half of the human race. I can’t believe that.’”

Hunthausen’s belief in the equality of women was not simply rhetoric. He took actions on behalf of gender justice that would eventually contribute to the Vatican forcing his early resignation. Hunthausen did not interfere with a regional gathering of the Women’s Ordination Conference held at a parish in the archdiocese and he allowed Catholic hospitals to perform contraceptive sterilizations.

Perhaps most significantly, he released a pastoral letter on women in 1980 after his fellow bishops in Washington State refused to take up the issue. The result of his ongoing dialogues with women, the letter drew from Vatican II’s teachings on non-discrimination, the witness of St. Catherine of Siena, and the gospels to advocate for concrete reforms that would ensure women fulfilled “equal roles as disciples” like Jesus intended. Hunthausen wrote:

“We cannot expect women to accept a role that limits their growth, opportunity, freedom, dignity, and particularly their rights…Change is mandated for the church of western Washington.”

McCoy named many of the reforms which Hunthausen mandated. These included:

“. . .affirmative action in all parishes and archdiocesan offices; equal access to theological and pastoral education; the elimination of sexist language and imagery from church rites, documents, and communications; equal employment opportunities and compensation for qualified women and men in church positions; and active recruitment of women as lectors, eucharistic ministers, and parish and diocesan team members. Finally, Hunthausen recommended creation of a Commission on Women to work with him and the archdiocesan Pastoral Council to guide and monitor the policies he had proposed.”

Eventually, Hunthausen’s enemies at the Vatican succeeded in toppling this prophetic leader. A two-year investigation ended with Pope John Paul II knee-capping Hunthausen by appointing then-auxiliary Bishop Donald Wuerl (now the cardinal-archbishop of Washington, D.C.) as co-adjutor for the Seattle archdiocese. Hunthausen resigned at age 70, five years before the mandated retirement age for bishops and long before many prelates’ resignations are actually accepted.

The New York Times obituary for Hunthausen cites the archbishop’s conviction that Vatican II’s education for him was to prioritize “the primacy of love” over “the power of law and discipline.” Though it cost him greatly, he lived that mission with admirable courage and abundant mercy. With his passing, feminist Catholics gain another advocate in the cloud of witnesses.

Raymond Hunthausen, saint of Vatican II and friend of Catholic women, pray for us.

Sources:

John A. McCoy, A Still and Quiet Conscience: The Archbishop Who Challenged a Pope, A President, and a Church

The New York Times, “Raymond Hunthausen, Liberal Archbishop Rebuked by Rome, Dies at 96”

The Seattle Times, “Seattle Archbishop Emeritus Raymond Hunthausen dies at 96