DESPAIR AND REMBERT WEAKLAND

A bronze depicting that notable protector of children Rembert Weakland (l), flanked by lesser lights St John the Evangelist and St Anne, mother of Mary.  It now graces the Cathedral in Milwaukee.

What goes through the mind of a man who is struggling to overcome a dark and terrible sin when he learns that his new boss or superior has that same sin and is not only not trying to overcome it but in fact apparently revels in it?  That question came to mind when the news came out in a recent front page article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel listing the names and faces of some forty-five priests (one or two of whom I knew personally) who had been secret homosexuals and had molested a number of young men (though some of those named were not sodomites and committed natural, as opposed to unnatural, sins).

Some of these priests were molesters before that most strange of men, Rembert George Weakland, replaced William E Cousins as Archbishop of Milwaukee.  But such men flourished under Weakland's fiefdom and many more were added to the list, a fact oddly missing from most of the news reports of the debacle in Milwaukee.  The pro-sodomy Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel went to extreme lengths to make Weakland look relatively benign in their news coverage, directing most of their venom at his replacement, Timothy Dolan.  One had to look with a microscope at the article to learn that the homosexual Weakland was finally relieved of his post after his own dirty little secret became known by one of his former lovers, wherein the world learned that the Archbishop had used about a half million Church dollars as hush money to keep his sordid double-life out of the newspapers (to no avail as it ultimately turned out). [This article from the much-missed web site Seattle Catholic gives the details.]  The Journal-Sentinel is really quite a funny publication.  On the one hand they will praise the recent Supreme Court decision giving the right of two men to "marry" and adopt boys who will, just as Mary's little lamb followed Mary, be perfect, ready-made victims for these newly-wed pederasts, and on the other they will condemn priestly pederasts for doing the same thing.  One wonders how the editors of that newspaper handle all these difficult mental gyrations.  One wonders how they can sleep at night.

The proclivities of the new Archbishop, one of Cardinal Villot's "boys" given to Milwaukee in 1977, were to be known virtually from the start of his sad reign so these homosexual priests preying on adolescent boys were either happy that one of their own was now in charge or in personal despair knowing that they would get no help from this man in fighting their terrible temptations.  Weakland telegraphed what was going through his mind when he would force priests and seminarians to view pornography, homo and hetero, at a number of their diocesan meetings.  Was it for recruitment purposes, one wonders?  In any event the resolve of those priests who were struggling to overcome these hideous sins must have been sorely tried at such meetings.  It is not hard to see how some of them would fall victim to despair and even, at least in one case, suicide.

Think of a petty thief who quite reluctantly engages in a habit of filching from the cash drawer finding that his new boss shares the same proclivity.  If the boss can do it, he thinks, why should he be so worried over it?  Weakland's promotion of this unspeakable vice is something he will one day have to answer for either on earth or before his Judge.  The number of priests who shared his sin and fell into despair because of his promoting of it are also things Weakland will have to answer for.  For a Bishop to drive not only his flock but his own priests to despair is a serious matter.  How many souls were lost because of this...lost, as in eternal damnation forever?

I hope the higher-ups in Rome reflect upon this when next they choose to send a man to oversee a Diocese.  I say these words even while reflecting on the Ricca scandal for which we all await a Papal response while not being distracted by the hoopla surrounding the latest rock star event in Rio.