Religion: Unreservedly Loyal to the Pope

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Since the Second Vatican Council concluded in 1965, dissension has become widespread among Roman Catholics in the U.S. Time after time priests, sisters and lay members alike have publicly and sometimes defiantly questioned policies and dictums emanating from the Vatican. But since he became Pope, John Paul II has been unyielding in his determination to restore certainty in church teaching, and lately he has turned his attention toward America. Perhaps the greatest burden of this simmering dispute has fallen on the 253 active bishops in the U.S., who are caught between the will of their Pontiff | and the insistent expectations of their freewheeling flocks.

All elements in the confrontation were present last week in a tense meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington. The differences were embodied in a dispute that occupied much of the convocation: the ecclesiastical troubles of Seattle's Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, 65, who earlier this year was stripped of some of his authority by Rome because of his tolerant outlook on homosexuality and other controversial subjects.

From the Vatican viewpoint, John Paul's program for the church was at stake. Noting the ways in which Hunthausen had strayed from papal policy, a Vatican official last week explained Rome's stand. "No business would stand for a daughter concern that so openly drifted from company policy," he said. "The Pope doesn't like being nasty . . . but he feels that ambiguity is slowly nibbling away at people's perception of the church and that the time has come to say no."

The cultural gulf between Rome and the U.S. exacerbates the conflict. While the American bishops' starting point tends to be democracy within the church, Rome is concerned first and foremost with religious dogma. According to one Vatican official, U.S. Catholics are heavily influenced by their culture and media, which, to the Pope, create a "society of immediate gratification," the exact opposite of John Paul's ethic of "service and commitment." A final irritant is American Catholics' penchant for airing disputes in public.

The Hunthausen case, a paradigm of such public controversy, erupted in September when the Archbishop revealed that Rome had quietly taken away his control over various aspects of doctrine and discipline and handed it to Seattle's newly named auxiliary bishop, Donald Wuerl, a loyal conservative. Hunthausen's revelation provoked public squabbling among the bishops and demands by liberals that the U.S. hierarchy fight back.

Concerned, the Vatican issued a highly unusual public explanation. In a document sent to U.S. bishops two weeks before the Washington meeting, papal Pro-Nuncio Pio Laghi detailed the matters on which Hunthausen lacked the "firmness necessary to govern the archdiocese." Besides homosexuality, the list included divorce, sterilization, sacramental rules and church employment of ex-priests. Laghi also charged that Hunthausen had agreed to cede the powers to Wuerl and then reneged on the deal.