Liberal Bishop Admits Gay Cover-up

NEW YORK (May 12) -- A Roman Catholic archbishop and liberal activist who resigned in 2002 over a gay sex and financial scandal is now promoting his book about being secretly gay in the church.

Archbishop Rembert Weakland, former head of the Milwaukee archdiocese, said in an interview Monday that he wrote about his sexual orientation because he wanted to be candid about "how this came to life in my own self, how I suppressed it, how it resurrected again."

The book is called "A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop."

Weakland stepped down soon after Paul Marcoux, a former Marquette University theology student, revealed in May 2002 that he was paid $450,000 to settle a sexual assault claim he made against the archbishop more than two decades earlier. The money came from the archdiocese.

Marcoux went public at the height of anger over the clergy sex abuse crisis, when Catholics and others were demanding that dioceses reveal the extent of molestation by clergy and how much had been secretly spent to settle and hide claims.

Weakland now denies having sex with the young man. He apologized for concealing the hush money. The Vatican says that men with "deep-seated" attraction to other men should not be ordained.

Despite denying the homosexual molestation of the teen, an August 1980 letter obtained by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel suggests he was guilty. In it, Weakland said he was in emotional turmoil over Marcoux and that he had "come back to the importance of celibacy in my life." He signed the letter, "I love you."

The revelations rocked the Milwaukee archdiocese, which Weakland had led since 1977. He was a hero for liberal Catholics nationwide because of his work on social justice and other issues.

Weakland also writes about his failures to stop sexually abusive priests. In a videotaped deposition released last November, Weakland admitted returning guilty priests to active ministry without alerting parishioners or police, thereby allowing them to abuse more victims.

Advocates for abuse victims said that Weakland's cover-up of his own sexual activity was part of a pattern of secrecy that included concealing the criminal behavior of child molesters. Weakland, a Benedictine monk, served in Rome as leader of the International Benedictine Confederation and also worked on a liturgy commission for the Second Vatican Council, which made reforms in the 1960s meant to make the church more liberal.

U.S. Catholics have long debated whether the priesthood had become a predominantly gay vocation. Estimates vary from 25 percent to 50 percent, according to a review of research on the issue by the Rev. Donald Cozzens, author of "The Changing Face of the Priesthood." See Chick's MEN IN BLACK.