MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Todd Robert Murphy July 18, 2014
The brick pavers surrounding the Eiffel Tower were made in the small town of Patton, Pa. The city of Patton was at one time the largest manufacturer of bricks in the world. A young novitiate from Patton would walk on his hometown pavers many times throughout his life. He would make his solemn profession as a Benedictine monk a little more than an hour away from post-war Paris in 1949 at the Solesmes Benedictine Abbey. He would take the name Rembert.
That was the beginning of a long and circuitous road for this future prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, Rembert Weakland. His passage would be flecked with accomplishment, controversy, disappointment and self-doubt. There would be times of great exhilaration, deep despair and loneliness. But one thing was indisputable from the very beginning: Weakland was a very gifted and holy man with a shining future in the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1977, Pope Paul VI elevated Weakland to archbishop of Milwaukee. At the time, many of the Catholic faithful were confused by the choice of Weakland, given his reputation as a church intellectual. Most thought it would be a only few years before he was given a red cap signifying him a cardinal of the church and moved on. That might have been in the back of his mind, too.
He was a cultural misfit in Milwaukee, and in his early tenure he was seen as a bit aloof by some. The Milwaukee Archdiocese, for lack of a better description, is a blue-collar, conservative Catholic community, and he was a progressive in the church. In his 2009 biography, he acknowledged his lack of comfort and feeling of isolation when he relocated to a town best known for beer, bowling and the TV show “Laverne & Shirley.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.