Father Ryan's response

            Would it come as a surprise if I told you that the bricks and mortar, granite and marble of St. James Cathedral are ‘ecumenical’ bricks and mortar, granite and marble?  They are!  In the early years of the last century, all of Seattle, not just the Catholics, dug deep into their pockets to help build St. James.  The Great Cathedral Fair of 1903 that raised nearly $20,000 to begin construction of the Cathedral attracted as many Protestants as it did Catholics -- and that’s a good thing because there were a whole lot more Protestants here than Catholics, and if the Cathedral had had to depend on Catholic money alone we would probably still be digging the foundations!  Considering that ecumenism was a largely unknown word back then and the ecumenical movement was still generations away, I find that pretty impressive.
 
            Some 85 years later when I came to St. James, there were, of course, many more reasons to look at the Cathedral through the ecumenical prism and for me to see my role as an ecumenical one.  My own seminary formation had taken place in Rome during the Second Vatican Council, that launching pad for ecumenism in the Roman Catholic Church.  Those were heady days and very exciting days, thanks to the vision of the great Pope John XXIII, and I remember them well.  After 400 years, the Roman Catholic Church was climbing out of its ghetto-mentality and embracing a vision of Church that emphasized the beliefs we Christians have in common rather than our differences: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and works through all, and is in all.”
 
            And, then, fairly early in my years of priestly ministry, I had the unparalleled privilege of working very closely with a giant of a man, Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, who will forever represent a high point of ecumenism in this community, and who will forever in my mind define what ecumenism is all about because in his own person he embodies what unity and love and dialogue and being Church are all about.
 
            All this is a way of saying that whatever I’ve been able to do to foster ecumenism during my years at St. James Cathedral, I credit to those powerful influences.  Thanks to them, I came to St. James believing that the Cathedral is God’s house for all God’s children – a place where people, no matter what their beliefs or their differences, can come together in times of challenge and times of celebration, times of triumph and times of testing -- come together to pray, to listen, to learn, to gain resolve, to gain respect and,  ultimately, to find ways to become in fact what we are in faith: the Body of Christ, called together to do Christ’s work: to work for peace, to advocate for justice, to speak up for the voiceless, and to care for those who cannot care for themselves.  We do these things so much better when we do them, not alone, but together!
 
            My friends, it is very humbling to receive this award but it is even more humbling – and rewarding – to work with people like you and with organizations like the Washington Association of Churches, to make the gospel vision of Jesus come alive in our time.