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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JANUARY 20, 1984
A native of Montana, the energetic, soft-spoken Hunthausen, 62,
is known as the "peace Archbishop."
He preaches unilateral
dis � rmament, refuses to� half of his income tax as� protest
against Pentagon spending, and has denounced the local nuclear
submarine base as the "Auschwitz of Puget Sound." During his
week-long visitation, Hickey said he was not concerned with
political issues but only with hearing out priests, nuns, and
parishioners, and among the 60 Washingtonians he spoke to there
was no shortage of praise for Hunthausen; 252 of the 280 priests
in the archdiocese signed� petition of support -
.- "A lot of us see
the Archbishop as a symbol of unconditional love here," said Pat
Cervenka, a Catholic housewife who went to the airport to hand
Hickey her own pro-Hunthausen letter. "The culture in the U.S.
is different from Rome."
- -
-- -- --
The weekly RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE reported in its September 12, 1983 issue
that Catholics in Seattle recently expressed their indignation at Arch
bishop Hunthausen' s decision to welcome the convention of Dignity, the
Catholic gay organization, by picketing a Mass and taking a full-page
advertisement in a daily newspaper. About 600 Catholic homosexual men and
lesbians attended the convention over the Labor Day weekend. Archbishop
Hunthausen, who was in Rome at the time, welcomed them in a videotaped
message and permitted them to use St. James Cathedral for a Mass, where
about 100 priests in vestments concelebrated.
Differing Views on War and Peace
Another widening gulf between the American bishops and their counterparts
in Europe--especially France and West Germany--is the approach to defense
in the nuclear age. Last spring, the U.S. bishops brought forth a pastoral
letter entitled "The Challenge of Peace." It came close to the political
position of those supporting a nuclear freeze.
It gave only "strictly
conditional acceptance" of the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, the backbone
of U.S. and NATO strategy.
It further called for a "no first strike"
policy, running counter to NATO options to use such weapons at any time in
the event of attack from the East. Critics of the pastoral letter said it
came perilously close to an endorsement of "peace at any price."
At the same time, the Conference of Catholic Bishops in West Germany took a
position virtually opposite to that of their American counterparts (see "On
the World Scene," May 6, 1983, p. 9). And recently, a plenary session of
the Catholic bishops of France issued a document on the issue of nuclear
arms and defense, titled, "Win the Peace."
The vote in support of the
document was 93-2. Excerpts follow:
Because the survival of humanity is at stake, there is no cause
that can justify the outbreak of a nuclear war. The same applies
to other forms of suicidal warfare which are less often dis
cussed, even though they too are being prepared for:
chemical
and biological warfare. Moreover, by centering too much atten
tion on nuclear war we run the risk of minimizing "conventional"
modern warfare.
Nobody wants�••.. Yet some countries are bent on reaping the
benefits of warfare without paying the price of
�=.
By
brandishing its threat, they make permanent use ofl5lackma1l•...