William DuBay

William Henry DuBay (December 24, 1934 – January 13, 2022) was an American Catholic priest and activist whose activities and suspension from the priesthood created controversy in the mid-1960s. He published widely on church reform, the rights of ethnic and sexual minorities, and plain language.

Early life Born on December 24, 1934, in Long Beach, California, William Heney DuBay attended public and Catholic schools before entering Los Angeles College Junior Seminary at the age of 13. After graduating and attending St. John's Major Seminary in Camarillo, California, he was ordained in the Jesuit order for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles in May 1960.

Ordained ministry While stationed in a segregated white section of San Fernando Valley, DuBay became interested in the civil rights movement. After publishing a Sunday newsletter calling on Catholics to support integration, he was disciplined by Cardinal James Francis McIntyre and sent to a racially mixed parish in Compton, California. While there, he attempted to organize other priests who also had been disciplined to protest the cardinal's racial policies.

In June 1964, he sent a cable to Pope Paul VI asking him to remove Cardinal McIntyre from office as Archbishop of Los Angeles for "conducting a vicious campaign of intimidation against priests, nuns, and lay Catholics" supporting the civil rights movement.

DuBay wrote: "His Eminence has condemned direct action demonstrations on the grounds that they incite violence. But as a matter of fact he has contributed to the possibility of serious racial violence by depriving civil rights groups of responsible Catholic and clerical leadership necessary to encourage Christian forms of nonviolent protest. His inaction has promoted the prolongation of Negro grievances by failing to mobilize the Catholic population against the social evils of segregation.

DuBay was again reassigned, first to St. Boniface Church in Anaheim and then as chaplain at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica.

In February 1966, DuBay was suspended from the priesthood for publishing The Human Church, which called for democratizing the Catholic Church. It recommended that the people elect bishops for limited terms. It called for abandoning the parochial school system in favor of programs that teach Catholics the principles of Christian action. The book argued that the Catholic Church should abandon its tax exemptions and let individual congregations create their own liturgies and creeds.

Citing DuBay's "public expressions of insubordination" and a lack of the bishop's imprimatur, the Vatican ordered DuBay to cease selling and distributing his book. DuBay protested that "prior censorship is a ghost that has been hovering around the Catholic Church since the Spanish Inquisition" and refused to stop distributing The Human Church.

Post-suspension In 1968, DuBay married Mary Ellen Wall of Seattle. They had one son. The couple divorced in 1971. That year DuBay came out as gay and became involved in the gay rights movement. He moved to Seattle,