A Very Special Friendship -- On 50Th Anniversary Of Ordination, Priest Recalls Rabbi Who `Let Me Grow'

He sat in the church in Ireland, this young boy of maybe 4, 5 or 6, studying the faces of the people around him. Something was different about their expressions.

He saw a seriousness, an earnestness, that he hadn't noticed the rest of the week. He sensed something important was happening in their lives. And there, before them, was the person who helped draw the people together for that hour of Mass each Sunday, the priest.

As he began to understand the role of the priest with people, the youth determined that he, too, would be one.

Seven decades later, the Rev. William Treacy is celebrating the 50th anniversary of his ordination as a Catholic priest.

Improbable relationship

Who could have foreseen the ways he would touch people's lives over those years? Or how his own life would be profoundly touched by what at the time seemed like the most improbable of relationships - a friendship and professional collaboration with a Seattle rabbi, Raphael Levine.

So closely did their identities become entwined that it is now difficult to think of one without thinking of the other.

They, along with the Rev. Martin Goslin of Plymouth Congregational Church, formed the original panel of the pioneering program on KOMO-TV, "Challenge." When it debuted in 1960, it was considered the start of the interfaith movement in Seattle.

The rabbi and priest wrote books together, and they established Camp Brotherhood near Mount Vernon in 1967 as a place where individual and family relationships could grow, and where Judeo-Christian ideals of brotherhood could flourish.

It seems fitting that to mark Treacy's half-century in the priesthood, a two-book volume on their lives has been published by Peanut Butter Publishing of Seattle. As was the case in real life, the autobiographies of Levine, who died in 1985, and Treacy, who celebrated his 75th birthday on Tuesday, are of two distinct individuals, but are bound together as a set.

What drew the two together, and what did each offer the other?

With his Irish lilt, Treacy said of Levine, "He let me grow."

It was through Levine that Treacy was challenged to examine his Christian roots, particularly as they related to Judaism. And it was through Levine that Treacy came into contact with Protestant pastors and their congregations.

As for what he offered Levine, Treacy recalled how Levine once told him that he had come to understand Christianity, not through books, but from Treacy's life.

"We were both totally unprepared by our conditioning" for the kind of open dialogue that would mark their relationship, said Treacy. Levine had grown up in a Jewish ghetto in Lithuania, having no contact with Christians. Treacy was born in the small town of Killasmeestia, about 50 miles from Dublin, where he had no contact with Jews.

Never did Treacy dream he one day would preach in a synagogue, as he did in 1966 at Levine's Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle. For that matter, Treacy never imagined he would be a priest outside Ireland.

During World War II, with Seattle's wartime population swelling, Bishop Gerald Shaughnessy put out a call for help because the diocese was short of priests. Treacy volunteered to come for five years.

He ended up staying, serving first at St. Alphonsus Church in Ballard in 1945, and later at St. James Cathedral and St. Patrick's Church in Seattle, St. Michael's in Olympia, Our Lady of the Lake in Seattle, St. Cecilia's in Stanwood, and now as an associate pastor at Sacred Heart Church in Bellevue.

It was as the result of the 1960 presidential campaign that Treacy met Levine. Levine recalled in his 1985 book, "Profiles in Service," that he had gotten anti-Catholic letters in the wake of John F. Kennedy's bid for the White House. The writers asked Levine to use whatever influence he could to prevent a Catholic from becoming President.

Levine showed the letters to then-Archbishop Thomas Connolly and noted he had the chance to start a weekly half-hour public-affairs program on TV - "for the benefit of our community" - if he could find a Protestant and a Catholic panelist to join him. Connolly sent Treacy. It was the start of the "Challenge" program.

"Challenge" ran on Sundays for 14 years, winning in 1962 a national award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews for a Palm Sunday segment, "Who Crucified Jesus?"

"We were all involved in it," said Treacy. And every time people act in a hateful, hurtful way, "We are rejecting Christ" and the values he stands for - love, compassion and caring for one another, said Treacy.

What religions share

Of all that he has learned over the years, Treacy said the most significant was his understanding of Jesus. That understanding was crystallized in a statement by U.S. bishops several years ago that the human person is the purest expression of God's presence in the world, and that anything that dehumanizes people is contrary to religious conviction and must be opposed. That is where all religions can find a basic meeting point, said Treacy.

In his own faith, reverence for life compels him to oppose not only abortion and euthanasia, but also capital punishment, torture and the neglect of people, from their education to health care to basic nourishment.

As he talks, his face is a study of life itself. It is at one moment deeply contemplative. Then the eyes light up and a broad smile crosses his face. He is an optimist when thinking of the future.

Asked how he views the world with its increasing factionalism and tribalism, Treacy said that with the fall of communism, which suppressed freedom, it was as if a rock had been lifted up. Sometimes when you move a rock, all kinds of "creepy, crawly things come out from under it. I feel that is where we are now, with creepy, crawly antagonisms. That is a temporary situation. I feel humanity is going to come to terms with it."

Concerning the shortage of Catholic priests in the U.S., Treacy said he supports optional celibacy and the ordination of women as priests. Though Pope John Paul II earlier this week issued a letter saying the church's ban on women priests was definitive and not open to debate, Treacy and others noted the pope stopped short of issuing a statement of infallible doctrine.

"Jesus advanced in wisdom, age and grace, and I feel the church will advance in wisdom, age and grace, and that it is possible that the church of the next century may see this (ordination of women as priests) as a step," said Treacy.

More active members

At the same time, Treacy said that in the widest sense, "There are plenty of priests, looked at in the sense that all the baptized people in the church are taking more responsibility for ministry."

As for his No. 1 concern, Treacy said it is the family. Later this year, the Levine and Treacy Family Center at Camp Brotherhood will be dedicated.

Before Levine died of injuries from an automobile accident, Treacy told him he would devote himself to Camp Brotherhood and the establishment of a center for groups working to nurture family relationships and understanding.

In an epilogue to Levine's autobiography, Treacy said he told Levine as he lay unconscious in his hospital bed, "Rabbi, I love you and thank you for the love, leadership, and understanding of the true nature of religion which you have given me. I promise you to live out the ideals you held before me by word and example." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Celebration tomorrow

The 50th ordination anniversary of the Rev. William Treacy will be celebrated in a Mass of Thanksgiving at 2 p.m. tomorrow at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 9460 N.E. 14th St., Bellevue. Copies of Treacy's autobiography, "Love Bears All Things," and Rabbi Raphael Levine's companion autobiography, "To Love Is To Live," are available for $50 paperback, $100 hardcover, by calling Camp Brotherhood's Seattle office, 632-0434. All sales proceeds will benefit Camp Brotherhood.