Former Catholic Church watchdog says clergyman used smear tactics

Chicago Sun Times ^ | October 1, 2003 | Rachel Zoll

[american colleen]

Former Catholic Church watchdog says clergyman used smear tactics

October 1, 2003

BY RACHEL ZOLL

Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, who resigned this year as head of a watchdog panel on clergy abuse, has told a conservative Roman Catholic magazine that a clergyman tried to undermine him by circulating a letter that accused him of keeping a mistress.

Keating said the letter -- which eventually made its way to top American church leaders -- also claimed he never attended mass.

''I was stunned and outraged,'' Keating said in an article he wrote for the October issue of the magazine Crisis. ''Every word was a lie.''

Keating recounted the incident as one of the events that led to his June resignation as chairman of the National Review Board.

U.S. bishops formed the lay panel in 2001 to monitor compliance with their new discipline policy on abuse, but Keating's pointed criticism of how dioceses had handled the crisis led some Catholic leaders to question whether he should be chairman.

He stepped down after angering many in the church by saying bishops were as secretive as the Mafia.

Keating, who has been married for 31 years, did not reveal the name of the person who wrote the letter but said it was ''purportedly written by the vicar general of Oklahoma City, a priest and the diocese's number-two official to his counterpart in Chicago.''

The Rev. Edward J. Weisenburger is listed in the 2002 Official Catholic Directory as the vicar general in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. The Rev. James A. Kastner is listed as co-vicar general.

Weisenburger released a statement Tuesday night saying Kastner is in a nursing home and ''could not have been involved.'' Regarding his own role, Weisenberger said only that, ''I am unaware of Governor Keating contacting Archbishop [Eusebius] Beltran or myself about a letter purported to have been written by the vicar general of the Oklahoma City Archdiocese to the Vicar General of the Chicago Archdiocese, whom I do not know.''

Asked in a phone interview whether he was denying having written the letter, Weisenburger declined to comment further.

AP

[maryz]

I notice that the Tulsa VG did not deny the allegation, nor did he answer the real question.

Lot of that going around . . . (Politicians answering a WSJ column in Letters to the Editors almost always handle it this way.)

As to Beltran, I've never heard of him before.