"Unreservedly" Loyal to the Pope U.S. Bishops Reluctantly Back Rome Against a Liberal Colleague

By Richard N. Ostling

Since the Second Vatican Council concluded in 1965, dissension has become widespread among Roman Catholics in the U.S. Time after time priests, sisters and lay members alike have publicly and sometimes defiantly questioned policies and dictums emanating from the Vatican. But since he became Pope, John Paul II has been unyielding in his determination to restore certainty in church teaching, and lately he has turned his attention toward America. Perhaps the greatest burden of this simmering dispute has fallen on the 253 active bishops in the U.S., who are caught between the will of their Pontiff | and the insistent expectations of their freewheeling flocks.

All elements in the confrontation were present last week in a tense meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington. The differences were embodied in a dispute that occupied much of the convocation: the ecclesiastical troubles of Seattle's Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, 65, who earlier this year was stripped of some of his authority by Rome because of his tolerant outlook on homosexuality and other controversial subjects.

From the Vatican viewpoint, John Paul's program for the church was at stake. Noting the ways in which Hunthausen had strayed from papal policy, a Vatican official last week explained Rome's stand. "No business would stand for a daughter concern that so openly drifted from company policy," he said. "The Pope doesn't like being nasty . . . but he feels that ambiguity is slowly nibbling away at people's perception of the church and that the time has come to say no."

The cultural gulf between Rome and the U.S. exacerbates the conflict. While the American bishops' starting point tends to be democracy within the church, Rome is concerned first and foremost with religious dogma. According to one Vatican official, U.S. Catholics are heavily influenced by their culture and media, which, to the Pope, create a "society of immediate gratification," the exact opposite of John Paul's ethic of "service and commitment." A final irritant is American Catholics' penchant for airing disputes in public.

The Hunthausen case, a paradigm of such public controversy, erupted in September when the Archbishop revealed that Rome had quietly taken away his control over various aspects of doctrine and discipline and handed it to Seattle's newly named auxiliary bishop, Donald Wuerl, a loyal conservative. Hunthausen's revelation provoked public squabbling among the bishops and demands by liberals that the U.S. hierarchy fight back.

Concerned, the Vatican issued a highly unusual public explanation. In a document sent to U.S. bishops two weeks before the Washington meeting, papal Pro-Nuncio Pio Laghi detailed the matters on which Hunthausen lacked the "firmness necessary to govern the archdiocese." Besides homosexuality, the list included divorce, sterilization, sacramental rules and church employment of ex-priests. Laghi also charged that Hunthausen had agreed to cede the powers to Wuerl and then reneged on the deal.

The bishops devoted nearly six hours of closed-door discussions to the affair. At the start, the Archbishop's colleagues gave him a long ovation -- but only three minutes on the floor to reply to Laghi's account. Hunthausen then handed out a lengthy statement, protesting that under the Vatican's secretive procedures he was never given the opportunity to answer any of the specific accusations and that some of the shortcomings had long since been remedied and other charges made against him were inaccurate.

The Archbishop freely admitted other points in Rome's indictment, including the charge that he allowed Dignity, a group of Catholic homosexuals, to celebrate Mass in his cathedral. But he pointed out that "many bishops" had permitted similar services. (Only three weeks ago, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a tough statement, insisted bishops avoid recognition of Catholic groups that implicitly treat homosexuality as benign or oppose church teaching that homosexual behavior is sinful.)

Summing up, Hunthausen declared that the Rome-imposed arrangement with Wuerl seemed "unworkable" and pleaded with his colleagues to "address this issue with the Holy See." After considerable anguish, the bishops issued a document that endorsed Rome's right to intervene in Seattle and said its procedures properly protect both individual rights and the good of the church. Indeed, the bishops declared that they "affirm unreservedly their loyalty to and unity with the Holy Father." Hunthausen's allies managed one triumph: deletion of the assertion that Vatican treatment of the Archbishop of Seattle was "just and reasonable." The bishops also offered their future "assistance" to all parties.

Despite the bishops' consensus, grumbling persisted. Bishop Michael Kenny of Juneau was disappointed that the statement did not confront the perception of "injustice" in the case. While conceding that "there really was little this group could do," Bishop Leroy Matthiesen of Amarillo, Texas, an ally of Hunthausen's in the antinuclear cause, noted that the long debate would surely send a warning to Rome through Laghi, who calmly observed the proceedings.

The president of the U.S. bishops' conference, James Malone of Youngstown, Ohio, had opened the meeting with a warning of his own: there is "growing and dangerous disaffection" between sectors of the U.S. church and the Vatican. He remarked that "some persons," mistakenly, are now questioning the "timeliness and utility" of the Pope's tour of the U.S. next September. Malone also announced he had asked that bishops be granted the opportunity to brief the Pope in person on the situation he will face in the U.S.

Such a visitation to Rome presumably would be led by Malone's successor, Archbishop John L. May, 64, of St. Louis, who was elected to a three-year term as the bishops' president. May, the expected winner as outgoing vice president and part of the moderate-to-progressive group that has long led the bishops' conference, outpolled Bernard Cardinal Law. The Boston Cardinal had staked out a claim to conservative leadership by stating last month that John Paul would have been "irresponsible" if he had not clamped down on Hunthausen.

Other voting reflected divisions among the bishops. In the second ballot for a new vice president, Law received 39% and Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk, a May-style moderate, 34%. Milwaukee's liberal Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who has implied that there are similarities between the Pope's clampdown and inquisitions of the past, drew 26%. Pilarczyk eventually won. In elections of U.S. representatives to a Vatican synod next year, moderates and liberals joined forces to elect Weakland and again bypass Law.

Weakland is best known as the head of the committee that wrote a pastoral letter on moral failings in U.S. capitalism. The final draft of that long- pending document received sharp criticism from the conservative laity for placing too much dependence on Government remedies. But last week in Washington the draft won lopsided approval, indicating that the bishops' social activism will continue unabated, whatever the other tensions within the church.

With reporting by Jerome Cramer/Washington and Daniela Simpson/Rome