On November 17, 1971, he was appointed Bishop of Oklahoma City-Tulsa. When the diocese was split to form the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa on December 13, 1972, Quinn became the first Archbishop of Oklahoma City. The website of that Archdiocese reports that "he revealed his priorities by his actions: emphasis on priestly vocations, desire for better pastoral care of Spanish-speaking Catholics, re-establishment of a Catholic newspaper, appointment of a full-time youth director, and a reorganization of Catholic charities." Pope Paul VI named Quinn to participate in the 1974 World Synod of Bishops.
Quinn's was a popular appointment by Pope Paul VI in 1977 and for almost his entire episcopate in San Francisco he enjoyed the support of priests and the lay faithful. In the early years of his time as Archbishop he was simultaneously president of the USCCNCCB, which often kept him away from the archdiocese. Quinn recognized that the Archdiocese was too large for effective pastoral governance and helped devise plans for the creation of the Diocese of San Jose, which was erected by Pope John Paul II on January 27, 1981.
Views
Irenicism and liberalism
Quinn was an irenic and liberal presence in San Francisco who, in the 1970s and 1980s, offering national leadership to Catholics in the United States on issues as diverse as U.S. women religious, the moral permissibility of nuclear weapons, sanctuary for Central American refugees, and working to overturn Roe vs Wade and restore legal protection to unborn children.
After the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero in March 1980, Quinn issued a statement lauding the murdered prelate as "a voice for the poor and the oppressed." Quinn later attended Archbishop Romero's funeral in San Salvador.
AIDS
In 1985, Archbishop Quinn initiated the Catholic Church's first institutional response to the AIDS epidemic and when John Paul II visited San Francisco in 1987, Archbishop Quinn arranged that he met with several AIDS patients, including a young boy.
LGBT
Quinn reached out to gay Catholic as early as 1983. He issued a document that asked priests to take concerns of gay people seriously. In it, he said he wanted gay Catholics to find "a church where he or she will find acceptance, understanding, and love." Priests were reminded in the letter that many gay Catholics saw their orientation as a positive. He supported the efforts of Most Holy Redeemer Church in The Castro in their efforts to reach out to the LGBT population of the neighborhood. Quinn regularly visited this parish, especially during the annual 40 Hours Vigil held throughout the 1980s in support of those who were HIV-positive and their caregivers.
In the 1990s, Quinn turned his attention to the needs of the archdiocese after the Loma Prieta earthquake, which damaged many churches. The Archdiocese of San Francisco drew up a plan which would see the closure of a dozen parishes whose churches had been damaged in the earthquake. This plan drew the wrath of many priests, 41 of whom signed a petition to Quinn dissenting from his plan. Quinn sold the former archiepiscopal residence and in the summer of 1992 moved into the Cathedral rectory where he lived with his fellow clergy until his retirement.
''The Reform of the Papacy''
Throughout his episcopate he maintained strong links with the Catholic Church in England visiting it regularly and maintaining strong personal links with the country. After his retirement from the full-time ministry he spent time at Campion Hall, Oxford where in 1996 he gave a celebrated paper on "The Claims of the Primacy and the Costly Call to Unity", a paper which was a first draft of his 1999 book The Reform of the Papacy. This call for the reform of the Roman Curia and a concomitant reduction in the power of that Curia has been interpreted by some conservative voices in the Church as an 'attack' on the papacy. Quinn repeatedly made it clear that he was not opposing the Vatican and in many ways his writings prefigured the views of Pope Francis.
Selected works
The Reform of the Papacy. A response to Pope John Paul II's request in the encyclical Ut unum sint in 1995 for suggestions on how to reform the papacy.
Revered and Reviled: A Re-Examination of Vatican Council I. An exploration of the ways that Vatican Council I influenced the important issues of papal primacy and the infallible teaching magisterium of the Pope.
