Click here to listen to this homily.
This is not going to be your usual funeral homily, but Archbishop
Hunthausen was not your usual bishop, was he? And I know: a homily is
supposed to break open the scriptures and shed light on them. But
Archbishop Hunthausen’s very life was a homily on those scriptures. His
life was a courageous prophecy. His life was a Gospel. He put a human
face on each of those Beatitudes we just heard. Pope Francis, in his
Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate, tells us that we find a
portrait of the Master in each of the Beatitudes. Yes, and I would say
that we also find a portrait of our friend, “Dutch,” in each of them. So
I hope you will bear with me if, instead of the usual funeral homily, I
simply tell a few “Dutch” stories that shed more light on the Beatitudes
than any words of mine ever could.
My first story
goes back to May 22, 1975, the day our friend was installed as
Archbishop of Seattle. Those of us of a certain age probably have
memories of that day – of the hope and joy we felt in welcoming our new
archbishop. My memory is of the homily. Well, not so much the homily
itself—who remembers homilies after all? My memory is of the lead-up to
the homily. When he stepped up to the podium on the stage of the Civic
Auditorium, Seattle’s new archbishop paused briefly and asked an
overflowing crowd to join him in some moments of quiet prayer, asking
the Holy Spirit to inspire him in what he was about to say. In the long
silence that followed, you could have heard a pin drop, and I remember
thinking to myself: this is new! And it was. We were used to bishops who
knew exactly what they were going to say and said it, bishops who had a
certain confidence that God told them what to say. Here was a bishop who
thought the people might have some say in what he was about to say—the
people and their prayer! That moment long ago reminds me of a memorable
moment in March of 2013, when the newly-elected Pope Francis stood on
the balcony of St. Peter’s, humbly bowed his head, and asked the whole
world to pray for him and to bless him.
All of this
brings to mind the first Beatitude: Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It is only the poor in spirit,
after all, who know how much they need the Holy Spirit.
That’s true
of Pope Francis, and it was also true of our friend Archbishop
Hunthausen. For him, it was always about being open to the Holy Spirit,
which meant being open to God’s holy people as channels of that Spirit.
We know, of course, that Church leaders are channels of the Spirit—that
God speaks through them. But God also speaks through the people in the
pews—through their needs, their hopes, their challenges, their dreams.
So the Archbishop’s first homily set the tone for everything he did
during his years in Seattle. From Day One, he made it clear that he
would be listening to the Spirit speaking through God’s people. All
God’s people.
Archbishop Hunthausen always maintained that he got his on-the-job
training for being a bishop at the Second Vatican Council. He arrived at
the Council with all the episcopal trappings: cassock and cape, miter
and mozetta, biretta and buskins; he left the Council wearing a simple
black suit and driving a Volkswagen -- a different man, a converted man,
if you will, a man convinced that the people, all God’s holy people,
were the Church; a man convinced that the Church could learn as well as
teach; and that the world was best seen as friend, not enemy – rich in
potential, flawed yet flowing with grace, charged with the very
“grandeur of God,” in the words of the poet.
And so, on
that evening so long ago, when our new archbishop asked us to pray for
him, it was his way of saying that he needed us, respected us, and would
listen to us. And he did. For sixteen incredible years he led us by
honoring our holiness -- walking with us, consulting us, challenging us,
collaborating with us, celebrating with us. I have often heard it said
that there’s something special and unique about the Church here in
Seattle. There is. And we know why. We had a bishop whose own holiness
was connected to the holiness of his people--which brings to mind
another beatitude: Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for holiness,
for they will be satisfied.
Second
story. The year was 1976 – one year after the Archbishop’s arrival here.
It was the year of our nation’s bi-centennial. For the Church here in
Seattle it was less a year of fireworks and flag-waving than a year of
prayerful listening. All over the archdiocese, listening sessions took
place that brought together parish leaders from communities large and
small, rural and urban, multi-cultural and mono-cultural. I happened to
be serving the parishes of the San Juan Islands at the time, so my
parish’s listening session was at Assumption parish in Bellingham. I can
picture it well even after more than forty years. In the parish hall
there were tables crowded with people from all the northern counties of
the archdiocese. They were involved in earnest discussion and dialogue
about their hopes and dreams for the Church. There were felt pens and
facilitators, and butcher paper on the walls (this was the 1970s,
after all), and there was a high degree of excitement and participation.
And Seattle’s new archbishop was there, but not in the way you might
have expected. He was not seated in a place of honor, nor was he seated
at any of the tables (lest he unduly influence or close off discussion).
He was in the back of the hall, down on the floor, actually, having the
time of his life playing quietly (well, maybe not all that quietly) with
a bunch of little kids who had come with their parents. He was the
daycare, if you will, and he was right at home, right in his element. He
had had years of practice doing the very same thing with his own nieces
and nephews who were, to the day he died, the light of his life. You can
picture the scene, can’t you? It puts me in mind of another
beatitude:
Blessed are the
pure of heart, for they will see God.
It wasn’t that the
Archbishop had tuned out the meeting but, for a time, he had called a
meeting of his own, making it clear that there is more than one way to
lead and reminding us not to take ourselves too seriously. Of course,
when all the discussions concluded and the various tables gave their
reports, the archbishop was all ears. He didn’t miss a word. Years
later, when he was called to task for governing by taking polls and
counting noses, he could have responded with words from Cardinal Newman:
“Truth is wrought by many minds working together freely,” but instead,
he respectfully spoke about his belief that he could be a better leader
and teacher if he knew what his people were thinking, if he knew “their
joys and hopes, their griefs and anxieties,” to quote from the great
Council document on the Church in the Modern World. And that brings yet
another beatitude to mind:
Blessed are
they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.
A third
story. This one comes from 1986. The Seattle Visitation was front-page
news around the country and the bishops of the country were assembling
for their November meeting in Washington, DC. The stakes were high.
After several years of a wearying, dispiriting hanging-out-to-dry of
this local Church and its archbishop, matters had come to a head. At the
highest levels, the Archbishop’s leadership had been called into
question and he was no longer considered capable of leading this Church
by himself. The people, however, (religious, priests, deacons, lay)—most
of the people saw it differently. They loved their archbishop, supported
and revered him, believed in him. It was a tense time and a terrible
time. The eyes of the country were on Seattle. The bishops’ meeting held
some hope, no matter how fragile, for resolution.
A couple of
us travelled to Washington with Archbishop Hunthausen for that meeting,
and I remember sitting together on the plane. And I also remember that,
joining us, purely by chance, was the chair of the theology department
of Notre Dame University, Fr. Richard McBrien. He had been at St.
Martin’s University in Lacey to give a lecture the night before. As you
can probably imagine, our conversation during the flight was rather
animated!
Before we knew it, we had arrived in Chicago where we had to change
planes. When we stood up to exit the plane we experienced the usual
inertia, the bottleneck when everyone is eager to move to the exit but
no one can. In the midst of that, a fellow who had been sitting in front
of us turned around abruptly and thrust a piece of paper into the
archbishop’s hand. “Here!” was all he said, but he said it with as angry
and hostile an expression on his face as I’d ever seen.
“Do you I know you?” the archbishop asked him, smiling his disarming
smile and extending his hand. There was no answer and no hand was
returned. There was only a handwritten page filled with venom and
vitriol and a devastatingly personal attack on the archbishop. Our
friend quietly folded up the note, put it in his pocket, and remarked to
us, as the fellow disappeared into the crowd, “Oh, I wish we could sit
down and get to know each other. Maybe we’d come to understand each
other and be friends.” I hasten to assure you that my sentiments at that
moment were far less generous!
I tell the
story because it was vintage Raymond Hunthausen: hopeful, forgiving,
kind. He was never one to judge, always one to think the best of
another, no matter what. His passion for peace and his reputation as a
courageous prophet of peace flowed out of who he was as a person -- a
grounded, holy, happy, perfectly-put-together, incredibly authentic
person who never preached a word that he didn’t first live—the very
embodiment of another of the beatitudes:
Blessed are
you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil
against you falsely because of me.
Story four. Pardon me for jumping around chronologically. This story is
from April of 1982. The archbishop was scheduled to speak before the
regional synod of the Lutheran Church at Pacific Lutheran University in
Tacoma. The day before, he shared with me the talk he planned to give,
asking for my comments. The talk was fairly predictable – until it came
to the part about withholding one-half of his federal income taxes as a
protest against the nuclear arms race. My heartbeat accelerated and my
blood pressure—shall we say?--elevated. I told the archbishop that I
thought it was a great speech but I questioned the passage about
withholding his taxes. True to form, he thanked me and told me he’d pray
about it. The next morning he told me he had prayed and was more
convinced than ever that he should leave that part in. I knew at that
point that there was nothing left for me to say, so I told him I would
prepare a press release. “Why would you do that?” he asked. “No one is
going to be interested in what I say.” On the contrary, I told
him, it would be (pardon the militaristic reference) “the shot heard
round the world!” And it was. As it should have been. And I should have
been a little less fearful; no, a lot less fearful. Thank God he
listened to the Holy Spirit, to the Gospel, and not to me!
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Story five. I only know this story because the archbishop told it to me.
It goes back to August of 1945. To August 6, to be exact – the day we
dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Dutch Hunthausen was at St.
Edward’s Seminary in Kenmore, a year away from ordination. Because of
the war and the pressing need for priests, seminarians were on an
accelerated path that involved their remaining at the seminary during
what should have been summer vacation. When word reached St. Edward’s
about the Japanese bombing there was general jubilation. The enemy was
finally vanquished. But that was not the way that Dutch saw it. He could
only think of the 70,000 people who had been incinerated in a matter of
seconds, and he shared with me how he went off to the woods for a walk,
and then to the chapel, where he buried his head in his hands, and wept.
Blessed are
they who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Story six. It was
late fall of 1973. The Archbishop of Portland was about to retire. A
call came to Bishop Hunthausen at his office in the Chancery in Helena.
Not just any call. It was Archbishop Jean Jadot, the Apostolic Delegate,
calling from Washington, DC. “The Holy Father would like you to go to
Portland as Archbishop,” he told him. Some moments of silence ensued.
Then our friend expressed amazement and asked if he could have some time
to think and to pray. The time was granted--I’m not sure how much--but I
am sure that the praying was intense. At the appointed time, our friend
called Archbishop Jadot and shared with him his deep and prayerful
conviction that the appointment to Portland was a step too far—that he
believed it would not be the best thing for the Church, and that, if the
Holy Father would allow it, he would respectfully decline.
I don’t think that
Archbishop Jadot was used to getting calls like that! And I don’t know
what he thought or said, but if he hadn’t realized it before, he knew
then that he was dealing with someone truly extraordinary! And it was
probably at that moment that he became convinced that, despite his
protestations, Raymond Hunthausen was precisely the kind of leader the
Church should be promoting. No surprise, then, that our friend received
a similar call from Archbishop Jadot a year or so later when an even
larger archdiocese to the north became vacant. This time his prayers
brought him to a different place. As he said to me: “It seemed that the
Lord was trying to tell me something.” No one of us would ever doubt
that. Thank God, he said ‘yes!’
Blessed are the
meek, for they will inherit the land. (Or in this case, inherit
Seattle!)
Story Seven. This
story comes from 1987. In order to understand it, you need to know that
one of the things the archbishop had been called to task for during the
Apostolic Visitation had to do with his supposed permissiveness with
regard to Church regulations about who can receive the Eucharist. He
wasn’t permissive, but he was a pastor, not a policeman. Well, the
Visitation had finally concluded. The Archbishop had been given back
full authority to govern and Thomas Murphy had been given to him as his
Coadjutor. In order to formally bring the whole sorry saga to a close,
both archbishops travelled to Rome for an audience with Pope John Paul
II. The plan was for the two of them to concelebrate Mass with the Pope
in his private chapel and then to have breakfast with him. As it turned
out, the two archbishops were not the only honored guests at Mass that
day. Standing in line with them at the entrance to the Pope’s chapel was
the noted American author, James Michener.
The
Archbishop later told me how delighted he was to meet and visit with
Michener, and how surprised he was that Michener knew who he was (a
Hunthausen reaction if ever there was one!). The two archbishops were
then escorted into the sacristy to vest for Mass. After Mass, they
joined the Holy Father for breakfast and some informal conversation.
Then they took their leave, found their way out to St. Peter’s Square,
and hailed a taxi to take them to the airport. Once they got into the
taxi, Archbishop Murphy asked Archbishop Hunthausen if he had noticed
that the Holy Father had given Holy Communion to James Michener, a
Quaker. “No foolin’!” our friend said. “Maybe we should get the taxi to
turn around, and go back and report the Pope to Cardinal Ratzinger!”
I’m not
going to leave the story there, because it doesn’t begin to tell the
whole story of how the Archbishop related to Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope
John Paul II. True to form, he was always completely respectful and he
agonized greatly over the perception on the part of some that he was a
maverick out to start a revolution. He always maintained, and rightly
so, that it was his pastoral leadership that had been called into
question, not his doctrinal fidelity-- pastoral leadership -- carried
out in fidelity to the gospel and Church teaching, and in response to
the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. But thank God for his humor,
the kind of humor evidenced that day in Rome. His humor, along with his
humility, and a faith stronger than any I’ve ever witnessed—got him
through some excruciatingly painful and difficult years.
Last story. It was
January of 2011. The bishops of the northwest were making their annual
retreat at the Palisades Retreat Center. Father John Canary, the Vicar
General of the Archdiocese of Chicago, was the retreat master, and our
friend was there and happy to be. But he was struggling with something
that had been bothering him for some time. For years, in fact. The
struggle was over where his funeral should be held and where he should
be buried. It was a classic Hunthausen conundrum brought about by two
competing values. Well, maybe more than two. There was his family – his
huge and beloved family – in so many ways the light of his life. And
there was Montana – Anaconda, Montana, to be exact – the place where he
grew up with his mom and dad, and his sisters and brothers – all six of
them. And there was that simple bare hillside cemetery overlooking
Anaconda where his remains could rest peacefully – and not too
prominently – alongside a whole host of Hunthausens. That was one choice
he could make, and clearly the choice of his heart, a choice consistent
with who he was and how he saw himself.
The
competing value had to do with his calling, his ministry in the Church
as shepherd, the important office he held for so many years, sixteen of
them here in Seattle. With that office came expectations and traditions
and the reality of a family far larger even, than the great and
larger-than-life Hunthausen clan. Tradition called for his funeral and
burial to be among the people he served as archbishop. It wasn’t a
mandate, mind you, but it was something of an expectation. Thus the
quandary.
As the
retreat unfolded, the Archbishop realized that the retreat master,
Father Canary, was someone whom he could talk with, someone whose
judgment he could trust. So he asked him for a chance to visit. During
the visit, the Archbishop shared with him the struggles and
uncertainties I mentioned, and after a while, Father Canary looked him
in the eye and said, “You know what I think? I think you’ve already
decided what you should do.” And the Archbishop thought for a moment and
said, “You know, you’re absolutely right!” And that was that. He later
shared with Archbishop Sartain and with me his decision to have his
funeral in Seattle and his burial in the crypt of St. James Cathedral.
Once more, the humble, thoughtful man of God, the gentle shepherd who
always prayed to do what was right, had found his peace in the way he
always had: by prayerful discernment, and by putting his calling and its
demands ahead of his personal preferences, no matter how strong.
There are so many more stories to tell about our friend. But I’ve talked
too long already. Let me conclude with a little story of my own. During
that fateful November, 1986 meeting of the Bishops’ Conference in
Washington, DC, I had a long and memorable conversation with Bishop
William McManus, the bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana. McManus
had been a Chicago priest and had served for years on the staff of the
national Bishops’ Conference. He was a highly respected educator
and an avid student of American Church history. During our conversation,
he shared with me that in two-hundred years, he thought the American
Church had produced a number of truly fine bishops, but only the tiniest
number of really great bishops. He named only three. Two were from the
late 19th and early 20th centuries: Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore,
and Archbishop John Ireland of St. Paul. Both men made their mark by,
among other things, helping to overcome a deeply-held Roman conviction
that the Church couldn’t really flourish in a democratic, pluralistic
republic like ours. The third really great bishop, McManus said, was
Raymond G. Hunthausen. Not bad company.
In
1893, Archbishop Ireland preached at Cardinal Gibbons’ twenty-fifth
jubilee as bishop –- two giants of the American Church sharing the
spotlight on that day. I want to close by quoting briefly from his
sermon:
“Let others
tell of the many; I would tell of the few. I am tired of the common. The
common never puts humanity forward, never begets a great movement; nor
does it save humanity when grave peril threatens. The common! We are
surfeited with it! The want in the world, the want in the Church, today
as at other times, but today as never before, is for leaders who see
farther than others, rise higher than others, act more boldly than
others. They need not be numerous. They were never numerous. But, while
few, they take with them the multitude and they save humanity!"
Dutch, dear
friend, common you were not, although you surely had the common touch.
And you did see further than others. You rose higher than others, acted
more boldly than others, and yes, you took with you the multitude: you
took us, and so many others. What a gift you were to us! You taught us
-- more by who you were than by what you said; you led us, walking
alongside us and never lording it over us; you inspired us to be our
best selves and never to take shortcuts around the gospel; and you
challenged us to dream great dreams and to believe that nothing is
impossible for those who believe. Blessed are you, dear friend. Blessed
are you. Yours is the Kingdom of Heaven!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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