Former Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen made his way to the witness stand in a crowded courtroom Monday, where he said he should have followed up on checking out a priest he allowed to serve in the diocese 30 years ago. The priest turned out to be a serial child molester.
Hunthausen, 87 and retired to Montana, said he couldn't recall a conversation he had with Spokane Bishop Bernard Topel , a close friend, about the priest.
He assumed the priest, Patrick O'Donnell, was in good standing and that he was here to study at the University of Washington.
Hunthausen said he and Topel were responsible for O'Donnell. But normal procedures weren't followed. There wasn't a letter of good standing on O'Donnell from Spokane.
"It was a breach on my part," he said. "I should have followed up on that."
The prelate's testimony offered a rare public window into how the Seattle Catholic Archdiocese has handled its long, secretive history of child sex abuse cases.
A renowned figure who served from 1975 to 1991, Hunthausen testimony came in the second week of the trial.
Before the start of Monday's testimony, it was announced that one of two men who are plaintiffs in the case had settled. The terms weren't disclosed.
The two men said in their suit that O'Donnell, their parish priest, had abused them in the late 1970s. The men, now in their 40s, allege that Hunthausen and the archdiocese knew - or should have known -that O'Donnell was a predator.
Filed in King County Superior Court, the case is the first sex-abuse claim against the archdiocese to go to trial.
O'Donnell testified last week that he molested at least 30 boys - including the two plaintiffs - during his 15-year priesthood.
Most of that time was spent in Spokane, where church leaders knew he was a sexual predator as they bounced him among parishes and repeatedly sent him into treatment.
In 1976, the Spokane bishop learned that O'Donnell was molesting a 14-year-old boy and quickly sent him to Seattle for sexual-deviancy treatment. Someone arranged for O'Donnell to live at St. Paul's parish in Rainier Beach for two years, where the priest continued to assault boys, including the plaintiffs.
Soon after the priest arrived in Seattle, Hunthausen granted him ministerial faculties that allowed him to say Mass, perform marriages, hear confessions and do other priestly duties.
In opening statements last week, attorneys for the plaintiffs said Hunthausen likely knew of O'Donnell's past because he had been close, lifelong friends with Topel, the Spokane bishop.
The men had attended Carol College in Helena, Mont., had vacationed together and had called each other by their nicknames. When Hunthausen became bishop of the Helena Diocese, Topel was one of his three consecrating bishops.
Topel died in the 1990s.
During his tenure in Seattle, Hunthausen had been famous for his populist liberalism. He protested nuclear weapons by withholding half his income tax, prompting the IRS to garnish his wages.
He let a gay Catholic group hold a special Mass at St. James Cathedral. And he stopped training deacons because of the Vatican's exclusion of women in that role.
His stances led to a two-year Vatican investigation in the early '80s, after which Catholic officials temporarily stripped Hunthausen of his authority in key areas.
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