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  Retired Archbishop Weakland Talks about His Church Controversy and His Homosexuality

New Richmond News
May 12, 2009

http://www.newrichmond-news.com/articles/index.cfm?id=25495§ion=Wisconsin%20News

Retired Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland now says he’ll donate the profits from his upcoming memoirs to the area’s Catholic Community Foundation.

Weakland, a central figure in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, has a book coming out next month that discusses his alleged failure to control sexually-abusive priests.

He also talks about his homosexuality.

Weakland, who’s now 82, told the Associated Press he thought about delaying the release of the book until after he dies.

But he decided that people who love him will also love the book, and he hopes critics will get a little more understanding about what he’s done.

Last week, we were told that Weakland plans to move to an abbey in New Jersey this summer.

He headed the southeast Wisconsin church for a quarter-century until 2002, when it was revealed that his used $450,000 in church funds to keep Paul Marcoux quiet.

Marcoux had accused Weakland of sexual allegations in 1979. And in 1998, he tried to extort $1 million from the archbishop by threatening to publicize a love note Weakland wrote him.

Weakland said he wanted to be candid about his sexual orientation because he wanted to tell how he suppressed it and how it got resurrected.

Last fall, court depositions were released saying he transferred abusive priests to new parishes without telling anyone and without reporting them to police.

Weakland now the depositions were “part of a whole picture that has not been painted yet.”

 
 

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