Seattle’s Father Ryan Reports on his Meeting with Pope Leo XIV

A trio of anniversaries bespeak the life of Fr. Michael Ryan, pastor-emeritus of Seattle’s St. James Cathedral. He has witnessed the Catholic Church come full circle, from reformer (St. John XXIII) to dogmatism (Benedict XVI).

Ryan is 85 years old, having spent 27 years as pastor of the imposing Cathedral on First Hill, after being ordained in the waning days of the Second Vatican Council. In Rome last week, Ryan conversed face-to-face with Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope. The two men took up the plight of immigrants and refugees, demonized by the second Trump Administration.

Ryan described the conversation in an email: “I got front row treatment. I thanked him for his strong moral leadership in a world devoid of such, and then thanked him for keeping the (Second Vatican) Council front and center — mentioning that I was a child of the Council having studied in Rome throughout.” Ryan sensed in Leo a papacy “very present and focused,” a Pope “very grounded spiritually and already at the helm.” So went a “memorable minute.”

During a lengthy tenure, unusual in the Seattle archdiocese, Fr. Ryan refurbished St. James, banished guitars at Mass, brought in a women’s’ choir, and GLBTQ activists took the pulpit at the Catholic cathedral to read scripture. Fr. Ryan would be archbishop of a large diocese in any competently run church, but instead his ministry has enriched the city.