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By William Neikirk
Tribune Staff Writer
March 23, 2000 11:41 p.m. CST

WASHINGTON -- Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert countered bitter political charges of Republican anti-Catholic bias Thursday with the surprise compromise selection of a Chicago Catholic priest, Rev. Daniel Coughlin, as the new House chaplain.

The speaker acted to defuse a raging controversy over his original choice of a Protestant for the post after signs that it was creating an even deeper chasm in a sharply divided House and threatening to harm GOP candidates in this year's elections.

Coughlin, 65, a gentle, soft-spoken priest who had been the vicar, or pastor, to other priests in the Archdiocese of Chicago for the past five years, became the first Catholic appointed as House chaplain. He will minister to the 435 members and pray before the House session opens each day.

He said he was "blown away" by the fact that he was plucked out of obscurity for the job and thrust into the middle of a political maelstrom. When a reporter suggested he was being thrown into a "lion's den," he responded that his name was fittingly Daniel.

As a native Chicagoan whose 85-year-old mother Lucille serves as an usher at Wrigley Field for Cub games, Coughlin said he had never been the victim of anti-Catholic bias but would immediately try to bring about healing. "I would hope that they would trust me and we could talk about it (anti-Catholic bias)," he said in an interview.

As he flew to Washington from Chicago Thursday morning, Coughlin said he reflected on the challenge of restoring some unity to the House. He said he thought of his own personal rendering of the pledge of allegiance as "one House under God. Maybe that's the goal."

The controversy over the choice for a new chaplain became a larger national issue after supporters of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., accused Texas Gov. George W. Bush of anti-Catholic sentiment following Bush's visit to Bob Jones University in South Carolina last month.

Hastert, an Illinois Republican, made his announcement Thursday in a dramatic House speech in which he accused Democrats of playing an "unseemly political game" by charging him and the GOP with religious bias in the initial choice of Rev. Charles D. Wright, a Presbyterian, for the chaplaincy.

"I will not allow this House to be torn apart and the office of the chaplain to be destroyed," the speaker said. He announced that Wright, after much consultation, had withdrawn from consideration, telling the speaker he did not want to be chaplain in the House where so many oppose him.

But Hastert long before this had developed a contingency plan for choosing a Catholic as the chaplain. A few weeks ago, he asked his friend, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, to make a recommendation. The cardinal proposed Coughlin, who was finishing a five-year term as vicar of priests. The speaker met with Coughlin in Chicago on Monday even though Wright did not formally pull out until Wednesday.

"I respect the speaker's choice and for my part and our part, we will do everything in our power to welcome this new chaplain and to make his service here a positive force for every member of this body," said House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo.

Some Democrats had accused the GOP majority of anti-Catholic bias by rejecting Rev. Tim O'Brien, a Catholic priest, who had received more votes from a bipartisan committee of House members screening the candidates. The ultimate decision to favor Wright, though, was made on a 2-1 vote by Hastert, Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) and Gephardt.

Republicans said they had been given a list of three finalists, including Wright and O'Brien, but Hastert said that there was no ranking of them. He said that his support of Wright "had nothing to do with Dr. Wright's denomination nor his religious doctrine."

O'Brien, upset over some questions from GOP members of the screening panel that he felt reflected bias, said in December that "I am convinced that if I were a mainline Protestant minister and not a Catholic priest, I would be the candidate."

These allegations added to an already poisonous political atmosphere in the House, but they were given added weight when charges of religious bias were raised in the presidential campaign.

GOP efforts to rescue Wright's candidacy failed. The speaker said he attempted to persuade Democratic leaders to allow Wright to appear before their caucus and make his case, but was refused.

"Sadly, it has become clear to me that the minority will never support Charles Wright to be the House chaplain," said Hastert, who had been accused of pandering to the Republican right wing in choosing Wright. The speaker said the history of the chaplain issue "does not appear to be constrained by common decency. It looks a lot like war. And it has an ugly face. This institution, so important in the protection of our freedom, is more important than which one of us sits in that speaker's chair."

In an interview after appointing the new chaplain rather than putting it to a House vote, Hastert said it made no sense to choose O'Brien "if you throw out the whole process," which the speaker decided to do. "I tried to find the best person," Hastert said, adding that he wanted to begin a "healing process" with Coughlin's appointment.

But the speaker's advisers also worried about the politics of the fight. One said that the anti-Catholic charges being made against Republicans could resonate with voters even if they were not true. The fact that a Catholic had been passed over and that there had never been a Catholic chaplain might give many Catholics the wrong impression about the GOP, he said.

"Perception feeds the reality," the adviser said. That could be devastating to some Republican candidates, perhaps even Bush, if the Democratic Party succeeded in branding the GOP as anti-Catholic, he said.

For that reason, Hastert began to consider other candidates for the job.

During their interview in Chicago on Monday, the speaker acknowledged, according to Coughlin, "that he had had a difficult time. He was hoping I could be a source of healing and unity."

Sitting on a sofa just outside the speaker's office, Coughlin said as the first Catholic chaplain "it's wonderful to bring my ministerial skills" to the job. "It's such a historic moment," he said. "But I'm not blinded by that."

He said he had been looking for a new opportunity. On July 1, he said, his tenure as vicar of priests for the archdiocese was to end, and he was wondering what he was going to do next. "I was practicing some fasting of the heart," he said, as he considered the transition. "Then I got this call." He said it was a call from God.

Coughlin said he has never followed politics closely and will have a difficult time at first. "Maybe it's a liability but I don't put names to faces," he said, adding that "hopefully I will build up a trust."

In addition to pastorates in Chicago, he has served overseas, serving with the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta and teaching as a "'scholar in residence" at North American College at the Vatican in 1984-85.

Coughlin said he had a high tolerance for meetings _ something that will serve him well in Washington.

"I will miss Chicago," he said. "It's one of the prettiest cities in the nation."