CHURCH ABUSE - ARCHBISHOP REMBERT WEAKLAND

MILWAUKEE (AP) _ Roman Catholic Archbishop Rembert Weakland agreed in 1998 to pay $450,000 to a man who accused him of sexual assault, according to documents cited Thursday by ABC News. ABC said the agreement had required Paul J. Marcoux, 53, to keep silent.

``I was involved in a cover-up. I accepted money to be silent about it, not to speak out against what was going on,'' Marcoux said in an interview broadcast on ``Good Morning America.'' Marcoux (pronounced mar COO) said he was sexually assaulted 20 years ago, when he was a student at Marquette University and had gone to the archbishop seeking advice about entering the priesthood.

Marcoux told the network Weakland ``started to try and kiss me and continued to force himself on me, pull down my trousers and attempted to fondle me.'' ``Think of it in terms of date rape,'' Marcoux told ABC.

ABC said as part of the settlement, the archbishop and the archdiocese denied the claims. It said the church declined to comment until the report was aired. Matthew Flynn, an attorney for the archdiocese, reached after the interview aired on the East Coast but before it appeared in Milwaukee, declined comment to The Associated Press. Jerry Topczewski, the spokesman for the archdiocese, did not immediately return calls from the AP.

The network also quoted from an 11-page handwritten letter that it said was written by Weakland. The letter, dated Aug. 25, 1980, said Weakland could not pay Marcoux more than $14,000 to settle the case.

``I should not put down on paper what I would not want the whole world to read. But here goes anyway,'' the letter said. ``I felt like the world's worst hypocrite. So gradually I came back to the importance of celibacy in my life. ...''

The ABC report said Marcoux sought more money in 1997 and the archbishop paid $450,000 to settle the case on condition of secrecy.

Here's the story from abc news:

Vow of Silence

Archbishop Signed $450,000 Agreement to Hush Sex Abuse Claim

By Brian Ross
ABCNEWS.com
May 23
— Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland has urged the Catholic church to open up about its growing sex abuse crisis, but he has desperately tried to keep sexual abuse allegations against himself a secret, ABCNEWS has learned.

The 75-year-old archbishop is accused of sexually assaulting an adult man, then covering it up for more than two decades. Paul Marcoux, a 53-year-old former theology student at Marquette University in Milwaukee, said the archbishop sexually assaulted him over 20 years ago when he went to him for advice about going into the priesthood.

Weakland, along with the archdiocese, later paid Marcoux $450,000 to sign a confidentiality agreement in which Marcoux vowed never to tell anyone about what he alleges transpired. Also in the agreement obtained by ABCNEWS, Weakland denied the allegations, but signed the document. The deal was hammered out four years ago by the archbishop, Marcoux, and each of their respective lawyers.

"I've been involved in the cover-up. I've accepted money to be silent about it," Marcoux told ABCNEWS.

But now he is breaking the silence. Neither Weakland nor the archdiocese would comment on the allegations.

A Church Leader

Weekland, who has been archbishop for 25 years, is considered one of the most important leaders in the American Catholic Church. He is expected to play an important role at next month's meeting of U.S. bishops to deal with the church's growing sex abuse crisis. His plan for dealing with abuse cases has been touted as a national model.

"So, as long as the victims are OK about it, I have no problem opening up those cases," Weakland told reporters at a recent press conference.

But all the while, Marcoux said that at least one incident has been lurking in the archbishop's past.

Marcoux says he met Weakland in 1979 while attending Marquette University. He says the incident occurred after dinner in the Archbishop's apartment, when he asked him for advice about entering the priesthood.

"A short time later he was sitting next to me and then started to try to kiss me," Marcoux said. "And I would say, well, think of it in terms of date rape."

Weakland forced himself on him, pulling down his trousers, and trying to fondle him, Marcoux said.

‘The World’s Worst Hypocrite’

Over the next year, Marcoux says the archbishop continued to seek a sexual relationship with him, but Marcoux says he only wanted a friendship. The relationship ended soon after Weakland wrote an 11-page letter to Marcoux, dated Aug. 25, 1980.

"I should not put down on paper what I would not want the whole world to read — but here goes anyway," he wrote.

Later on in the letter he writes, "I felt like the world's worst hypocrite so I gradually came back to the importance of celibacy in my life."

The letter makes it clear that even then, Marcoux was pressuring the archbishop for money. But Weakland claimed he could give no more.

"Paul, I really have given you all I personally possess," the letter says. "The $14,000 is really my personal limit."

Hush Money From Archbishop

But 16 years later, in 1997, with the powerful archbishop trying to deal with widespread allegations of abuse within the church, Marcoux was back, threatening to file his own lawsuit. This time, he got the money he sought, though Marcoux says that what he really wanted was an apology.

Marcoux acknowledges that some people might view the written agreement as blackmail.

"[It was] a settlement for a sexual assault case," Marcoux said. "And what I wanted to do was to have my day in court."

Settlement, but No Peace

Still, the money hasn't brought him solace, he said.

"I must say that even though I received a handsome settlement on it, it has not obviously brought me much peace in this thing," Marcoux said.

Some local critics of the church say that the archbiship had no business making a secret payment of $450,000 simply to save himself from embarrassment.

"You just don't take church money to hush it up," said Peter Isley, who heads the Milwaukee chapter of an organization of those abused by priests."That money is a trust given to the archdiocese to be used for the ministry. To be used to help people, to clothe people who don't have clothes, for God's sake! I mean what can you do with a couple hundred thousand dollars? There are people in this town starving!"

Archbishop Weakland is a co-founder of the AIDS Resource Centre of Wisconsin /Milwaukee AIDS Project (ARCW/NIAP). His name has appeared on official letterhead and he has solicited funds - even donating archdiocesan funds to ARCW/MAP. A recent past-president of this organisation was known to have been a homosexual activist. The organisation distributes AIDS education brochures including instruction on "safe sex" which, apart from advocating condom usage, suggest "Watersports - urinating on each other", mutual masturbation, oral sex and other activities far too distasteful to list here. Additional literature distributed by ARCW/MAP carries advertisements for X-rated gay movies, gay baths and bars, pictures of gay strippers and a Gay Photo Calendar. In 1987, Weakland was asked by a group of lay Catholics to resign his position as co-chairman of the Board of Trustees of ARCW/MAP, but he declined to do so.

Archbishop Weakland has allowed ex-priest and open dissenter Professor Daniel Maguire, to continue to teach moral theology at Milwaukee's Marquette University in clear contravention of Canon Law: Maguire has appeared regularly on the U.S. media justifying abortion and advocating the admission of active homosexuals to the priesthood.

Dignity, the American-based organisation of homosexuals (Acceptance is the Australian off-shoot), has declared: "We affirm that gay and lesbian people can express their sexuality physically in a unitive manner that is loving, life-giving and affirming" while it "emphatically disagrees with and calls for a re-examination" of official Church teaching on homosexuality (National Catholic Register, August 14, 1987). Yet Dignity continues to hold Masses at Milwaukee's St Pius X Church contrary to Vatican directives (The Wall Street Journal, July 11, 1991). In 1991, prior to Milwaukee's "Gay Pride Week", Church facilities were made available for several fund-raising dinners to raise money for the "Gay Pride Parade."

One of the several priests who celebrated Masses for Dignity-Milwaukee was Father James L. Arimond. Archbishop Weakland had supported Fr Arimond against Catholics United for the Faith's 1987 criticisms of his dissenting teachings in a course of lectures, "Homosexuality and Its Impact on the Family", given at the archdiocesan Archbishop Cousins Catholic Centre. Soon afterwards the Archbishop promoted Fr Arimond to the rank of parish pastor.

Quack..

By that logic, no one could speak to the problem of child molestation except child molesters. And isn't it odd that you, apparently a noncelibate, can so easily read the mind of those who choose celibacy and can make judgments about their maturity and judgment? Do you see the inconsitency in your "logic"? By the way, you obviously have not stepped into a Catholic Church in years, if ever. There are so many outreach ministries to every kind of cause, and there are many compassionate priests and nuns who could show you a thing or two. With respect to your statement that unmarried clergy have nothing to add with respect to marriage and sexuality, your ignorance is breathtaking. I have been fortunate to have benefited from the counsel and wisdom of many priests on marriage and family matters. They understand human nature far better than you think. And they are confronted with these problems on a daily basis. Take your anti-Catholic bigotry somewhere else.

The urge for sex is one of the four basic drives in human beings. Mature people control and direct that drive in positive directions. Immature people give in to it, often in destructive ways.
Such failures are commonplace in the real world. Among those who hold leadership positions, however, such failures are more than merely "personal" failures. Someone who exercises power over the lives and property of other people must be capable of self-constrol, Otherwise, they can and will do things that are destructive to those who depand upon them.
Also, it is well-known that sexual crimes are among the most repetitive crimes that humans commit. Someone who is shown to have committed just one crime of sexual activity has almost certainly committed others of the same type, and will almost certainly commit additional ones in the future, unless stopped.
Lastly, people in positions of power who commit sexual crimes do recognize that their acts are wrong, but they also have power to use funds in their control to silence those who know the truth, to continue to present a false front to the public.
There is, of course, one step worse than paying off the victims. It is murdering the victims.
Every word of this applies equally to Archbishop Weakland, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Bill Clinton. Weakland should resign immediately from all leadership and priestly duties with the Catholic Church. If he does not do that, the Church should remove him from all such positions, immediately.
Jesse Jackson should resign immediately from all positions of leadership in all his organizations. If not, he should be removed from them.
Bill Clinton should have resigned as President of the United States. Since he did not, the Senate should have removed him.
Can and should Weakland make the argument "it's all about sex"? If he does, it should be flatly rejected. Sex is only the symptom. It's really about maturity and self-control. Men who are not mature, men who lack self-control, should not be put in, and not be allowed to remain in, positions of power over others.
Bottom line: there is no moral difference between O.J. Weakland, O.J. Jackson, O.J. Clinton, and O.J. They are all reprehensible human beings. They, and anyone who defends them, are part of the problem, not part of the solution. All such people need to be removed from positions of power and respect as quickly as possible. No ifs, ands or buts.
It's as simple as that.

Congressman Billybob

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