The Priest and the Cardinal

In the 1960s, California voters were pushing the state toward apartheid, escalating racial tensions. The first chapter opens with a press conference held in Los Angeles by a young Catholic priest, William DuBay, in which he asked Pope Paul VI to remove Cardinal McIntyre from office as Archbishop of Los Angeles because of his opposition to the civil-rights movement. The next four chapters describe DuBay's conflicts with the Cardinal that led up to the press conference. The last three chapters describe the aftermath of the press conference including the Watts Riots and the publication of DuBay's book, The Human Church. The book called for the democratic reform of the Church and resulted in DuBay's suspension from the priesthood. As the story will show, DuBay was not acting alone, but always supported by many others, including fellow priests and a dedicated group of laypeople called Catholics United for Racial Equality (CURE). This is their story, too.