We lost a position of religious leadership more than a century ago when Washington’s Catholic bishop left Vancouver and moved to Seattle.
The Columbian told that story in a recent update on the Proto-Cathedral of St. James the Greater.
But Bishop Edward O’Dea wasn’t the only leader of the diocese to wind up in Seattle. In another transition that didn’t go down well with some local Catholics, his two predecessors also left St. James … even though they’d been buried beneath the Vancouver church for more than half a century.
Augustin Blanchet, the first bishop of the Vancouver-based Nesqually Diocese, died in 1887. His remains were placed in a crypt beneath the altar of the church. In 1895, Bishop Aegidius Junger was buried next to Blanchet.
It was not their final resting place.
“In 1955, St. James suffered a blow that still rankles many of the parishioners,” Victoria Ransom wrote in a 1974 account for the local historical society. “The bodies of Bishop Blanchet and Bishop Junger were removed to Holyrood Cemetery in Seattle.”
Interestingly, Holyrood Cemetery had been in his previous parish, said the Rev. William Harris, who became pastor of St. James in 2012.
After his own move, Harris can see the topic from a Vancouver perspective.
“Now I get it,” Harris said. “They were bishops of Nesqually, and this was their cathedral. I can imagine if you’d asked them, they’d be buried here.”
Church officials didn’t tell St. James’ pastor about plans to move the bishops’ remains, Harris said, which bruised some feelings.
And that crypt? It plays a different role in church operations, Harris said.
“It’s where the heating and cooling are now.”
Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.
