Celebrating Vatican II: celebrating Archbishop Hunthausen. (Notebook).

In a dismal season for the Catholic Church, one bright if poignant note has been sounded by celebrations around the country marking the opening of Vatican II on October 11, 1962. On that day, John XXIII began the first session of the council by observing that, "In the daily exercise of our pastoral office, we sometimes have to listen, much to our regret, to voices of persons who, though burning with zeal, are not endowed with too much sense of discretion or measure.... They say that our era, in comparison with past eras, is getting worse and they behave as though they had learned nothing from history, which is, nonetheless, the teacher of life.... We feel we must disagree with these prophets of doom who are always forecasting disaster...."

Some things never change!

Vatican II remains a living agenda in Seattle. On October 11, 2002, not only was the council celebrated, so was the youngest American bishop to attend that first session--Raymond G. Hunthausen, consecrated bishop of Helena, Montana, on August 30, 1962, just weeks before the council opened. (He became archbishop of Seattle in 1975.) The archbishop, now retired, celebrated this dual anniversary in an afternoon of stories and recollections with an audience of about three hundred people, gathered at Seattle University's School of Ministry and Theology.

Back in 1962, Hunthausen went off a neophyte to Rome having barely had time to read the voluminous documents written in Latin for the bishops' deliberations. This was no great loss, he admits, since the first session of the council ended with the schemas prepared by curial officials being set aside in favor of a fundamental change in outlook, because "the bishops took control of their own council." His indirect reference to the conflicts of that first session, however, did not prevent Hunthausen from recalling, with affection, Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani (since become a "villain" of the drama), as a man "fighting for his cause." Ottaviani addressed the assembly in fluent Latin, which many bishops did not understand, and returned to his place smiling and making jokes (in Latin). Hunthausen observed all of this from on high. As a youngster among the bishops, he did not merit a seat in the ranks of "bleachers" that figure so prominently in photos of the council. He was exiled to the balcony, "front row, left corner," where he could watch the proceedings with ease.

For Hunthausen, the council was "an ideal training ground for someone who had been recently appointed bishop." On any given evening, theologians and observers would hold forth in formal and informal settings offering an assessment of what was going on. At these sessions, he ruefully observed, "we solved all the problems of the world." Another benefit was the frequency with which the bishops of the United States could see and speak with one another. This unprecedented experience, Hunthausen believes, set Cardinal John Dearden on making the U.S. bishops' conference a more deliberative and collaborative body. "The council liberated us," he observed of himself and his fellow American bishops. Certainly the pastoral spirit and high hopes of the council are still reflected in Seattle, where Hunthausen pursued with other Christians a serious and profound ecumenism, and with Catholics the practice of "shared responsibility."

Yet it was precisely these issues that became the source of Hunthausen's later troubles with the Vatican. Like Ottaviani, he too had to fight for his cause. In 1986, the archbishop came under scrutiny and was criticized for allowing (or overlooking) practices that the Vatican judged strayed from orthodoxy. An auxiliary bishop was appointed who was to supervise the correction of those practices. When this became public, an uproar ensued. Finally, a Vatican-appointed committee of three U.S. prelates was commissioned to resolve the crisis. They did, with Hunthausen remaining as archbishop. (Ken Brigg's Holy Siege: The Year that Shook Catholic America [HarperCollins], gives a full account of the conflict.) Presumably, this struggle took a toll on Hunthausen, who retired early at the age of seventy in 1991.

Today, at age eighty-one, the archbishop appears a man at peace, neither bitter nor angry about one of the most painful episodes in U.S. Catholic history. In any case, it seemed far from his mind as he emphasized the work of the spirit and the rich pastoral theology that Vatican II inspired in his years as archbishop. Reflecting that spirit and theology, Patricia Repikoff, one of the pastoral life directors he appointed to oversee a parish in an archdiocese historically short of priests, said to the archbishop: "As shepherd, you were bishop and Christian for us and with us. You led us gracefully into that threefold mission begun in baptism (and you never led where you wouldn't go yourself!)."

At a time when the energy and spirit of Vatican II seem to be in abeyance, the fortieth-anniversary memories, tributes, and stories in Seattle celebrated at least one place where the council took hold and where it persists.

In the scheme of things, forty years is perhaps not such a long time. Certainly the first session of the council ended in a manner that invited an uncertain forecast. Though the bishops had vetoed the curial documents, what would they produce in their stead? Would they prevail? What would the new agenda be? John XXIII closed that first session on December 8, 1962, with this benign understatement: "In such a vast gathering, it is understandable that a few days [!] were needed to arrive at an agreement on a matter on which, in all charity, there existed with good reason sharply divergent views. But even this has a providential place in the triumph of truth, for it has shown to all the world the holy liberty that the sons of God enjoy in the church."

Where is that holy liberty today?