BISHOPS OF THE WILD, WILD WEST
         The Church in the Pacific Northwest is deeply indebted to Francis Xavier Norbert Blanchet.  Blanchet, with Father Modeste Demers, both natives of Montreal, was one of the first priests to minister in the Oregon Territory, and staunchly believed in a bright future for the faith here.  In 1843, when the Holy See designated the region an apostolic vicariate, F. N. Blanchet became its first bishop.  He headed home to St. James Cathedral, Montreal, where he was consecrated bishop, but afterwards he did not return to Oregon.  Instead, he went on to Europe to recruit priests and religious for the West.  He spent several months in Rome, where, amazingly, he succeeded in convincing the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda to elevate the new apostolic vicariate into an Archdiocese, with two suffragan dioceses.  Not only that, but at his recommendation Father Modeste Demers was appointed the first bishop of Vancouver Island, and Blanchet’s own brother became the first bishop of Walla Walla—later Nesqually—later Seattle. 
 
A ROUGH BEGINNING
         F. X. N. Blanchet’s faith in his brother A. M. A. (Augustin Magloire Alexandre) was not ill-founded.  Born in 1797, ordained at the young age of 23, he was a gifted priest, appointed to several posts of trust in his home diocese of Montreal.   Upon receiving word of his appointment to Walla Walla, he, like his brother before him, was consecrated bishop in Montreal.  He began preparations for the journey west.  While his brother had traveled by sea, A. M. A. Blanchet decided to take the Oregon Trail.  He recruited priests and seminarians, raised funds, and collected supplies, and set out from Montreal on March 23, 1847.
         The Oregon Trail was something of a baptism by fire for the well-educated Blanchet, who (just a few weeks short of his 50th birthday) had spent most of his years of ministry in the elegant confines of Montreal’s magnificent Cathedral.  He was shocked at the liturgical laxness he encountered in the United States (they did not chant Vespers in the cathedral at St. Louis!).  American men were always putting their feet on the table (“raising their legs as high as their heads when they are sitting down,” wrote the shocked Blanchet).  American servants were rude (“we have the opportunity to practice patience and charity,” he said).  And then there were the hardships of the Oregon Trail.  Bishop Blanchet had to abandon many of his supplies along the way, including a plow, because the exhausted and underfed oxen simply couldn’t pull them any farther.  There were unanticipated expenses that ate up almost all the money Blanchet had collected back home, so that he arrived in Walla Walla with almost empty pockets.
 
A HOME IN VANCOUVER
         In Walla Walla, there was no rest for the weary travelers.  No joyful assembly gathered to meet the new bishop, there was no solemn installation in the cathedral—in fact, there was no church at all.  Walla Walla was not a city or even a frontier town; it was nothing but a “lonely fur trading post,” a “forlorn and uncouth fortress” (Schoenberg).
         Just a few months after Blanchet’s arrival, the tensions between settlers and native peoples exploded in the Whitman massacre.  The new bishop helped negotiate for the release of the captives, and tended the dying, but after visiting his brother the Archbishop in Oregon City in early 1848, he was denied access to Walla Walla upon his return, due to the outbreak of the Cayuse War.  And if that wasn’t enough, the California Gold Rush had drained the region of resources as settlers and even priests headed south in search of riches.
In 1848, Archbishop Blanchet wrote to the Sacred Congregation again, proposing a new arrangement of his vast territory, moving the seat of the northern diocese from Walla Walla to the safer Nesqually region in the west.  Approval came in 1850, and for the first time since his consecration in 1846, Bishop A. M. A. Blanchet had a stable home, and a cathedral:  St. James, inside the walls of Fort Vancouver.

The blanchet brothers retire
         The Blanchet brothers–Augustin in the north, Francis in the south–were getting on in years.  They had come to a rough-and-ready frontier, and had gradually brought order out of chaos, building churches, schools, orphanages and hospitals, recruiting priests and religious from Europe, Canada, and the east coast of the United States, raising funds, and traveling incessantly through their vast territories by inadequate roads in all weathers and in all dangers.  They had witnessed massacres, epidemics, wars, and a Gold Rush, and had waged their own battles against anti-Catholic legislation that regularly threatened to reverse all their hard-won advances in the region.
         The work took its toll on the brothers.  At the laying of the cornerstone of Portland’s cathedral in 1878, it became apparent to all that Archbishop Blanchet was in failing health.  Though he presided at the ceremonies and even took time to distribute candy among the orphan children, he was moving slowly, and walking with a noticeable limp.  The people were greatly concerned, but not really surprised – he was just one month short of his 83rd birthday, after all!  A few weeks later, he announced his retirement, writing, as he always did, with an abundant use of the royal “we.”  “It has pleased God to send us… an affliction which impaired our right leg, and rendered somewhat difficult the visitations of the remote missions of our Archdiocese,” he began.  He had requested a coadjutor in 1876, and now, at last, his successor was on his way:  the saintly Bishop of Vancouver Island, Charles Jean Seghers.
         Never was bishop more ready for his successor’s arrival!  Blanchet sent a carriage drawn by four white horses to the wharf to meet Archbishop-Elect Seghers and bring him to Portland’s cathedral in a grand procession.  When he arrived at the church, the venerable Archbishop Blanchet greeted him with these words:  “My Lord Archbishop Coadjutor:  This day of your reception in this cathedral as my coadjutor and future successor is the happiest day of my life.”  And the Archbishop really meant it.  In private he said, “I am glad to have a coadjutor… I’m going to throw all my miseries on his shoulders.” 

BISHOP JUNGER
         Just before Archbishop Seghers came to Portland, in June, 1879, Bishop Blanchet of Nesqually quietly submitted his resignation as well, which was accepted nunc pro tunc, which meant that he would continue as administrator of the diocese until a successor could be appointed.
         F. X. N. Blanchet had waited years for his replacement to arrive; A. M. A. had to wait only a few weeks.  On August 6, 1879, Father Aegidius Junger was appointed the second Bishop of Nesqually.  He was well-known to both Blanchet brothers, having served for several years as Vicar-General for the Archdiocese of Portland.  He was consecrated at St. James, Vancouver on October 28, 1879.  As far as episcopal consecrations go, it was a simple ceremony – just the two Blanchets were present as consecrators, instead of the customary three bishops.
         But simplicity was well-suited to Junger, who was, by all accounts, a quiet and humble man.  He preferred the peace of the Walla Walla Valley to the growing cities of the western part of his territory.  He loved serving the people, especially the children, but he did not excel at the political negotiations over land and property which were also part of the bishop’s responsibility.  The latter years of his ministry were somewhat embittered by a lengthy legal battle over 640 acres of land in downtown Vancouver, the site of the original St. James church, a battle which the diocese ultimately lost.
         But Junger never complained.  He worked and traveled tirelessly, even as his health gave way.  Just two weeks before he died, he visited the Holy Names Sisters in Seattle, celebrating Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in their Chapel.  On his return to Vancouver, the famous Mother Joseph persuaded him to stay at Providence Hospital to be cared for by the Sisters.  But it was too late:  the Bishop died suddenly on December 26, 1895, with Mother Joseph at his side, but before his Vicar General, Father Schram, or his doctor could be summoned.  He was only 62 years old.  He was buried in the cathedral he had proudly built in Vancouver, and with the new year preparations to receive his successor were underway.

THE BOY BECOMES A BISHOP
         Bishop Junger’s unexpected death on the day after Christmas, 1895, left the diocese of Nesqually without a shepherd.  Many names of priests to succeed Bishop Junger were suggested and discussed, but gradually three emerged as the front runners.  There was the famous Father Peter Hylebos of Tacoma—the pioneer.  There was Father Peter Yorke of San Francisco – the firebrand.  And there was Father Edward O’Dea of Portland—the boy.
         O’Dea was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1856, but as a child moved with his family to the west coast, settling first in San Francisco, and then in Portland.  O’Dea’s vocation to the priesthood was nurtured from an early age by the venerable Archbishop Blanchet of Portland and by the famous Mother Joseph of the Sisters of Providence, who was a friend of O’Dea family.  He studied at the Grand Seminaire in Montreal, and was ordained at 26.  He became secretary to Archbishop Gross and served at the Portland cathedral for a number of years, and later as pastor of St. Patrick’s Church in Portland.
         O’Dea must have known that he was rumored for Nesqually, but it still came as quite a shock when a newspaper reporter came knocking at his rectory door in July of 1896.  “We have a dispatch from Rome saying you have been appointed Bishop of Nesqually; have you anything to say?”  O’Dea replied with characteristic circumspection:  “I haven’t a thing to say, and this is the first I have heard of it.” But in this case, rumor spoke true, and the news was officially announced on July 23, 1896.
         The Archives of the Archdiocese of Seattle preserve a scrapbook in which O’Dea himself carefully kept the dozens of congratulatory telegrams and letters he received, along with newspaper clippings from newspapers large and small from all over the Northwest.  He was a popular fellow, and the messages of congratulation are exude genuine enthusiasm.  “Ten thousand times ten thousand congratulations, ad multos annos,” wrote a friend from San Francisco.  “Thank God it has been thus ordained by Providence,” wrote an Irish resident of Spokane.  “I do not know when I have ever read an announcement in the morning paper that has pleased me more than the account I read of your appointment this morning,” said a Portland parishioner.  “In every Catholic home in the Great State of Washington this is a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving,” wrote an exuberant Tacoma man.  Carefully mounted on its own page in the scrapbook is an exquisitely penned letter from Sister Rose of Lima of the Holy Names:  “Claiming the privilege of a former teacher, I hasten to convey to your Lordship heartfelt congratulations blended with esteem.” 
         Even the newspapers were enthusiastic about the appointment.  A Portland paper reported, “Rev. Edward O’Dea is a man of decidedly pleasing appearance and address.  He is rather tall and dark, and looks scarcely 30, though he is nearly 40…. Father O’Dea is unquestionably one of the most popular Catholic clergymen of the Northwest.”  (This was probably the only occasion on which O’Dea was ever described as “tall”!)  The article went on to explain how bishops were chosen in the Catholic Church:  three names were submitted to Rome with the Latin designations dignus, dignior, and dignissimus—worthy, more worthy, and most worthy.  O’Dea, the writer confidently states, was the most worthy:  “By ‘dignissimus’ is doubtless conveyed the impression of ‘all around best fellow.’”
         Not everyone was delighted at O’Dea’s appointment, however.  Some of the veterans of the Diocese of Nesqually felt that O’Dea, who was just 39 at the time of his appointment, lacked both experience and understanding to administer the diocese well.  But Father Hylebos himself felt differently.  He was among the first to write to O’Dea, saying, “I welcome you to the highest position in our diocese from my very heart, in all candor and with the best of wishes.  I will openly tell you that whilst the name of Father Schram and mine had been on the lips of many people in connection with the succession to Rt. Revd. Junger, it is just right to give it to neither of us:  I have prayed to that effect, and I take solid comfort in your appointment.  Now you know exactly how I stand.”
         After a tearful farewell in Portland, O’Dea was consecrated Bishop of Nesqually at St. James Cathedral, Vancouver, on September 8, 1896.  The vestments he wore had been prepared by the loving hands of the Sisters with whom he had worked in Portland:  Mother Joseph herself embroidered the slippers he would use during the liturgy, while the Holy Names Sisters provided his gold miter and lace alb.
         And then the work began.  Young though he was, O’Dea quickly won the respect of priests and people alike when he reopened the “St. James Mission Case”—the lawsuit that had been the bane of poor Bishop Junger’s administration—and promptly won from the United States Government a settlement of $25,000.  People quickly realized that this handsome young gentleman was also an administrator to be reckoned with!
 
         Interestingly, among the letters Bishop O’Dea preserved in his scrapbook are three of a different sort.  Prominent businessmen and clergy of Tacoma, Spokane, and Seattle all wrote to O’Dea in that first month following his appointment, urging him to move his residence and his see to their cities.  Tacoma boasted of its healthful climate, beautiful situation, and magnificent homes.  Spokane was the wealthiest city in the state.  But Seattle was growing faster than either of them….  The youthful Bishop of Nesqually clearly had his work cut out for him:  enough to keep him busy for thirty-seven long and remarkable years of ministry.

A WISE MAN FROM THE EAST
      When Bishop Edward O’Dea died on Christmas Day, 1932, he had led the Church in Seattle for 37 years.  He wasn’t just a bishop; he was the bishop.  The rain and clouds of a Northwest winter that marked his funeral day seemed to portend a gloomy future.
     It would be several months before a successor to Bishop O’Dea was named.  During this period—called the sede vacante, or “empty chair”—one-time Cathedral pastor Msgr. William Noonan served as administrator of the diocese.  As always, speculation was rife about who O’Dea’s successor might be.  Seattle priests had their hopes set on Bishop John O’Shea, a Maryknoll missionary serving in China.  Few Seattleites had even heard of Father Gerald Shaughnessy, SM. 
     Shaughnessy was a thoroughly east coast man, born in Massachusetts in 1887.  He attended public schools and then graduated from Boston College, later entering the Marists (he proudly retained his religious initials, “S. M.,” even after he became a bishop).  He was ordained at the then rather late age of 33, and in 1925 completed his doctorate.  (His dissertation, which studied the retention of the Catholic faith among immigrant populations in the U.S., was later published under the title, Has the Immigrant Kept the Faith?)  He also worked in the office of the Apostolic Delegate (the Pope’s representative in the United States), and taught courses at Catholic University.  Shaughnessy was happy in his work as a bureaucrat and academic, and looked forward to a long career in the capital.
     But that was not to be.  On July 3, 1933, he received word that Pope Pius XI had named him Bishop of Seattle.  His first reaction was alarm.  “You will forgive me for writing in English, [rather than Latin],” he said in a letter to the Father General of his order.  “As it is I can hardly think even in that language when I contemplate my appointment to Seattle.”  He had never been to Seattle—the closest he had come was a visit to California and a short stint as a teacher in Anaconda, Montana.  To leave his beloved Marist community and take up residence and leadership among total strangers was a frightening prospect.  And yet there was hope as well.  “I have to believe that God has led the Holy Father to choose me for this work; and I cannot doubt that God will give me the necessary grace if I but try at least in some small measure to deserve it.”  As a faithful servant to the Church, Shaughnessy accepted the new assignment.  It is no accident that he chose for his episcopal motto the single word, Fiat, for he had struggled to echo Mary’s “yes” to God.
          Shaughnessy was consecrated a bishop in the crypt of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. on September 19, 1933, and then headed west for his solemn installation on October 10, 1933—he would be the first of our bishops to be installed at St. James Cathedral.  Msgr. Noonan, with Msgr. Stafford, the Cathedral’s pastor, planned a series of events which would demonstrate to the new bishop that though far away, Seattle was very far from provincial.  Everything was planned with care, from the music for the Mass (the incomparable Cathedral choir of men and boys), to the menu for the banquet (which started with “Pamplemousse Supreme” and ended with “Glace Jubilaire”).  There were delegations to greet him at train stations all across the state.  Upon his arrival at King Street Station, he was taken directly to the Cathedral, which was packed with children from across the diocese, who joyfully welcomed him and received his first blessing.
     Throughout the events, joyful as they were, Bishop O’Dea cast a long shadow.  He was impossible to replace, and difficult to follow.  “His holy life, his intelligent, incessant devotion to duty are fresh in the memory of all,” said Msgr. Noonan at the opening reception for the new bishop.  “Among the brightest pages in the history of the Catholic Church in America, must ever be those in which glitters the name of Edward John O’Dea”!
     Bishop Shaughnessy had big shoes to fill, and many daunting challenges ahead of him.  His meticulous administration and careful leadership would carry the Diocese of Seattle through the years of depression and war.

ILLNESS OF BISHOP SHAUGHNESSY
          Bishop Shaughnessy worked incessantly to dig the Church of Seattle out of debt and put it on a sound foundation once again.  He brought the local Church through the Depression and the Second World War.  He was closely involved in all aspects of the Church’s life, and he was willing to make unpopular decisions. 
          But the bishop during Seattle’s lean years was not destined to be the bishop during the post-War boom.  In November of 1945, as he returned from the United States Bishops’ Meeting in Washington, DC, Bishop Shaughnessy suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and was taken off the train in Jersey City.  The man who returned to Seattle a few weeks later was not the same man who had left it.  The only person who seemed unaware of his broken condition was Bishop Shaughnessy himself.  He forced himself back into his usual strenuous routine.  Further strokes followed, and before long Bishop Shaughnessy was confined to his residence on Boren Avenue.  Still he insisted he was able to handle all the business of the Chancery.  It is said that his correspondence piled up, unopened, for an entire year.
 
A HERO’S WELCOME
          Rome responded in 1948 by appointing a coadjutor bishop—a first for Seattle.  A coadjutor is appointed to assist a bishop, and usually has the right of succession.  The chosen man was Bishop Thomas A. Connolly (“TAC” to his friends), Auxiliary of San Francisco—charming, popular, energetic, effective, the beloved pastor of the famous Mission Dolores and trusted right-hand to two San Francisco Archbishops—Hanna and Mitty.
          The diocese went all out to welcome its coadjutor and future bishop.  It was a hero’s welcome, such as the ‘greatest generation’ knew so well how to provide.  On April 20, 1948, the new bishop came from San Francisco in a special car of the Cascade Limited, along with more than two dozen friends, including bishops who would take part in the installation in Seattle.  In Vancouver, the first stop in his new diocese, there was quite a ceremony as 600 children crowded onto the platform to greet him (seven of them holding colored placards spelling the word W-E-L-C-O-M-E), while a first-grader presented him with a bouquet of red roses.  He was then greeted by the pastor of St. James, Vancouver, and treated to a brief history of the city, with particular reference to the fact that it had once been the see city of the diocese.  Bishop Connolly won the affection of the children immediately by announcing a school holiday, and then got back on the train.  All of this in a five-minute whistle stop!
          At every stop along the way—in Kelso, Castle Rock, Centralia, and Olympia—delegations were at the station to greet the new bishop.  Upon arrival at King Street Station, Bishop Connolly went straight to the bishop’s residence at the corner of Spring and Boren to meet with Bishop Shaughnessy, who was too ill to be present for any of the installation festivities.  From there he proceeded to the Chancery to meet with the consultors.
          The installation itself was full of grandeur.  The decorations were certainly the most elaborate anyone had seen since those long-ago days before the Great Depression.  A huge American flag flew between the towers of the Cathedral, and papal and American banners hung from the pillars of the nave.  The altar was adorned with banks of spring flowers, and there was even “a huge replica of the Bishop’s coat of arms formed of green and white flowers.” 
More than an hour before the liturgy began, every available seat in the Cathedral was full—1600 crammed inside, while another 500 waited outside to watch the immense procession of 45 Knights of Columbus, 251 priests, 16 monsignors, 3 archbishops, and 10 bishops, wind its way around the block and into the Cathedral.  The new bishop did not disappoint.  The Progress enthused, “Bishop Connolly ascended to the altar and for the first time his people assembled in the Cathedral heard and thrilled to his rich voice raised in a song of prayer for them.”  And his first words to them gave them confidence:  “I look forward to my labors among you with great anticipation and enthusiasm.  As for the future, I find it attractive, promising, and radiantly hopeful.  It unfolds an opportunity of almost limitless achievement!”
          When the liturgy of installation was concluded, there was a banquet at the Olympic Hotel, and a few days later a civic reception was offered for the new coadjutor in Seattle’s Municipal Auditorium.  Amazingly, the crowd that assembled to welcome Bishop Connolly was the largest in the venue’s history.  All 6,500 seats in the auditorium itself were occupied, while 1,500 more filled a smaller basement auditorium, where they would be able to hear the speeches.  Another 2,000 disappointed people stood outside in the plaza in spite of rain and then (on April 25!) hail and snow.  The governor, the mayor, judges, business leaders, the orchestra of Holy Names Academy and the 134 girls of the Holy Rosary Choir—in short, everyone who was anyone—came to welcome the new bishop.  Clearly, the arrival of Bishop Connolly was not just a Catholic moment, but a civic moment.  In his youth and energy, Bishop Connolly seemed to embody the hopes of a triumphant new generation.

A NORTHWEST NATIVE COMES TO SEATTLE
          Archbishop Connolly led the Church in Seattle for nearly thirty years.  Like Bishop O’Dea before him, he was a “bricks-and-mortar” bishop who left a legacy of new churches, schools, hospitals, and retreat centers across the Archdiocese.  But by the time he retired in 1975, it was clear that the boom times were over.  The city was suffering as people migrated to the suburbs, and Catholic schools were hit hard (the Cathedral School was forced to close in 1971).  The nation was in a long, slow, recession and many diocesan institutions were struggling.
          Archbishop Connolly’s successor—whose years as Archbishop of Seattle would be marked by much joy, and by many difficult decisions—was Raymond G. Hunthausen, Bishop of Helena, Montana. Hunthausen was a Northwest native, born in Anaconda, Montana, and many in Seattle remembered him, as he had done his seminary studies at St. Edward’s Seminary in Kenmore.  But what would he be like as a bishop and leader? And what new plans and ideas would he bring to the Archdiocese of Seattle? To find out, the Progress sent reporter Paul Clark to Helena to “live in the prelate’s back pocket” for the weekend.
          That weekend was quite a revelation. The revelations began when the reporter climbed off the plane at the Helena airport and found the Archbishop-designate waiting to meet him in person. “I had expected to be met by a priest-member of the Chancery staff, or a secretary,” he wrote. “I was very flattered to have a member of the American hierarchy take my luggage in one hand and my elbow in the other as he piloted me towards his car,” a Volkswagen Dasher!
          And the surprises continued. Bishop Hunthausen lived simply, in a small apartment on the second floor of Helena’s Chancery building. He was a family man, devoted to his mother Edna, beloved of his brothers and sisters and literally dozens of nieces and nephews. He loved sports, and was an avid skier. He had a varied background and a wide range of interests.  He had taught chemistry at Carroll College in Helena (in addition to coaching football, basketball, baseball, track and golf) and later served as college president before being appointed Bishop of Helena by Pope John XXIII in July of 1962. He was ordained a bishop just in time to attend the first session of the Second Vatican Council in October, 1962.
          Back at home, Bishop Hunthausen promptly began the work of implementing the Council’s teachings, establishing a Diocesan Pastoral Council and many other consultative groups.  And he listened, preferring to reach decisions through consensus.  Hunthausen was active in establishing ecumenical dialogue among Christian denominations in Montana.  And he had already become a nationally-recognized voice for peace, advocating for nuclear disarmament.
          Archbishop Hunthausen was installed as the second Archbishop, sixth bishop of Seattle at the Seattle Center Arena on May 22, 1975. Archbishop Jean Jadot, the Holy Father’s Delegate, read the Apostolic Mandate, the official document appointing Hunthausen Archbishop of Seattle.  Then, in keeping with long tradition, the Consultors of the Archdiocese inspected the Mandate, and then showed it to the people for their acceptance.  Only then did Archbishop Jadot and Archbishop Connolly together lead Archbishop Hunthausen to the cathedra (moved to the Arena for the purpose!), and present him with the crosier, the sign of the pastoral office. 
          Father Ryan was a young priest at the time, assisting as master of ceremonies for the installation rites.  He remembers that Archbishop Hunthausen preached extemporaneously, without any notes.  He began by asking the entire assembly to pray with him in silence to the Holy Spirit, so that he might say what needed to be said.  “It was a new moment,” Father Ryan recalls.
          Archbishop Hunthausen spoke quite simply of his dreams for the Church in Western Washington. “I pray that we might truly be a loving people who recognize that if peace is to come into our world, it must begin with ourselves, at peace with God, and at peace with one another. I pray that we might understand we have a mission and that we might be serious about it. To be a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, has to be the most important thing in our lives. I pray that we can put aside the polarization in today’s Church… I pray that we can bring the witness of unity so that the entire human family will see that we are one body with the Lord.”  He quoted the words of another bishop, St. Augustine, to his flock:  “If, then, I am gladder by far to be redeemed with you than I am to be placed over you, I shall, as the Lord Himself commanded, be more completely your servant.”  In his sixteen years as Archbishop of Seattle, Archbishop Hunthausen would make those words his own.

Corinna Laughlin