Former archbishop of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Rembert Weakland kneels and prays as he is given a standing ovation of support after he apologized publicly for sexual indiscretions during a prayer service 31 May, 2002 in St. Francis, Wisconsin. Weakland admitted to having a relationship with and paying USD 450,000 to former seminary student Paul Marcous. / Tannen Maury/AFP via Getty Images
Denver Newsroom, Aug 22, 2022 / 13:50 pm (CNA).
Archbishop Rembert Weakland, a Benedictine who served as Archbishop of Milwaukee from 1977 to 2002, died overnight on Monday.
Weakland died after a long illness the night of Aug. 21-22 at Clement Manor in Greenfield, a Milwaukee suburb.
The archbishop was a progressive who had advocated for the priestly ordination of women.
His resignation as Milwaukee’s archbishop came after revelations that the archdiocese had paid $450,000 to silence Paul J. Marcoux, an adult male seminarian with whom he had a sexual relationship.
Archbishop Jerome Listecki of Milwaukee commented Aug. 22 that “For a quarter of a century, Archbishop Weakland led the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and his leadership embodied his Benedictine spirit. His pastoral letter, ‘Eucharist without Walls,’ evoked his love for the Eucharist and its call to service. During his time, he emphasized an openness to the implementation of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, including the role of lay men and women in the Church, the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, Ecumenical dialog, and addressing societal issues, especially economic justice. May he now rest in peace.”
Weakland was born in 1927 in Patton, Pennsylvania, and attended the minor seminary run by Saint Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe. He was professed as a member of the Order of Saint Benedict at the abbey in 1946, and took solemn vows in 1949. He was ordained a priest in 1951.
A music scholar, he was made a consultor to the Consilium, the committee which interpreted Sacrosanctum Concilium and which was responsible for preparing the revised Order of Mass following the Second Vatican Council, in 1964. He was made a member of the Consilium in 1968.
In 1967, he was appointed abbot primate of the Order of Saint Benedict.
He was appointed Archbishop of Milwaukee in 1977, and consecrated a bishop that year. He served there until his retirement at age 75 in 2002.
His own sexual abuse, and his poor handling of abuse by other priests, led to the renaming, in 2019, of the Weakland Center, which holds the offices of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist.
Weakland said he began having homosexual relationships after his episcopal consecration, and he dissented from the Church’s teaching on the immorality of sodomy.
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ACI Prensa Staff, Apr 10, 2023 / 15:18 pm (CNA).
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The Vatican this week … […]
The Knights of Columbus announced the selection of this icon of St. Joseph holding the Child Jesus as the centerpiece of this year’s KofC prayer program. / Courtesy of Knights of Columbus
CNA Staff, Nov 9, 2021 / 16:14 pm (CNA).
As the state deputies of the Knights of Columbus gathered for their semi-annual meeting last weekend in Nashville, Tennessee, Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly encouraged the order’s leaders to grow in faith, expand the Order’s membership, and advance the Knight’s mission.
Kelly also introduced the Order’s new pilgrim icon prayer program, which features an icon of St. Joseph holding the child Jesus from St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, Canada.
The Knights of Columbus (KofC) is the world’s largest Catholic fraternal organization, with more than two million members in 16,000 councils worldwide.
The pilgrim icon prayer program is a longstanding tradition for the KofC, in which every few years a new icon of a saint is selected to inspire the Knights and their communities. The icon is distributed to each of the Knight’s more than 75 jurisdictions and travels from council to council.
Councils at parishes will use the icon as centerpieces for “rosary-based” prayer services, a press release said. Our Lady of Guadalupe was the first icon during the conception of the program in 1979. Since the initiation of the program, almost 175,000 council and parish prayer services have been held with about 22 million participants.
Past images commissioned by the council have been icons of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Our Lady of Częstochowa, Our Lady of Pochaiv, Our Lady of the Rosary, Our Lady of Charity, Our Lady Help of Persecuted Christians, and the Holy Family.
Following a Votive Mass in honor of St. Joseph on Saturday, Nov. 6 celebrated by Supreme Chaplain Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, Kelly announced the featuring of the St. Joseph icon, which is inspired by Pope Francis’ Apostolic letter, Patris Corde. Pope Francis’s letter announced the year of St. Joseph that stretches from Dec. 8, 2020 to Dec 8, 2021.
Kelly, who received a private audience with Pope Francis last month, said that the Holy Father was grateful that the Knights chose St. Joseph to be “a central focus of our spiritual efforts.”
Kelly was accompanied at the meeting by his predecessor, Past Supreme Knight Carl Anderson, as well as Lori.
The choice for the newly commissioned icon of St. Joseph is no surprise, as Kelly has advocated for devotion to the saint since his installation as the Supreme Knight.
During his June installation, Kelly consecrated his administration to St. Joseph. “The example of St. Joseph teaches us how to be Knights of the Eucharist. He was the guardian of the first tabernacle — beginning with Mary herself when she bore Christ in her womb, and then in the home where he and Mary lived with Jesus,” he said at his installation address.
Also, in October, the Knights released a new documentary on St. Joseph, inspired by Pope Francis’s declaration of the Year of St. Joseph.
The Knights of Columbus’s pilgrim icon prayer program is a longstanding tradition, in which every few years a new icon of a saint is selected to inspire the Knights and their communities. This year, the Knights have chosen an icon of St. Joseph holding the child Jesus from St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal, Canada. Jeffrey Bruno, Courtesy of the Knights of Columbus.
During his address on Saturday, Kelly encouraged Knights and their communities to again entrust themselves to St. Joseph. Kelly implored the men to “give thanks to God for the gift of his fatherly example and ask St. Joseph to be a father to us” as we seek to “grow in our own imitation of St. Joseph’s quiet strength, integrity, and fidelity.”
Lori said that St. Joseph’s obedient faith and trustworthiness are “two virtues [that] ought to stand out in us as Knights of Columbus, and especially in us who are leaders among our brother Knights in the Order.”
“St. Joseph’s vocation to foster the earthly life of Jesus is, of course, unique, but all of us have been called to the obedience of faith,” Lori added. “Father McGivney envisioned his Knights, above all, as men of obedient faith, who, with their wives and children, would live their vocation to the fullest.”
“In choosing Joseph to care with a father’s love for the Incarnate Son of God, the Eternal Father recognized in St. Joseph a man of utmost integrity, a man who perhaps had no idea what God had in mind for him but nonetheless went about his daily life and work with honesty and reliability,” he said.
“A lot of men, especially young men, are looking for meaning and answers,” he said. “We offer both — a life of service and a life of meaning. Don’t just encourage men to adopt our initiatives; explain to them why our initiatives matter, and how the Knights can help them be the kind of men God is calling them to be,” he said.
Speaking of the Knight’s founder, Blessed Michael McGivney, Kelly told the state deputies on Friday, Nov. 5 that McGivney was a “man of action.” He said that McGivney “rose to meet the struggles” of his parishioners and community “head on,” and that by establishing the Knights of Columbus, he “gave men a place to stand as brothers, bound together in charity, unity, and fraternity.”
Kelly implored the Knights to fulfil the mission that McGivney started in his time. Kelly also called on the men to expand the Order’s membership by growing “deeper, as men of faith.”
On Nov. 7, at the meeting’s closing session, Kelly presented four Knights with the St. Michael Award for exemplary service to the Order.
The four recipients were: former director of chaplains for the KofC, Augustinian Father John Grace; former Supreme Warden George W. Hanna; Supreme Master Dennis Stoddard; and Col. Charles “Chuck” Gallina (USMC-Ret.), the supreme knight’s advisor for military and veterans affairs.
Typical of homosexuals (98+ percent), he was also pro-abortion. It could frequently be comical the way he would dodge a direct question on the matter, immediately going into the other-issuses-too mode. When he once held a “listening session” of women in his diocese open to the press expecting all the usual griping about female ordination and evil patriarchy, etc…, he instead got a bunch of women speaking of their pride that the Church defended the unborn. Weakland was embarrassed and apologized to the press that so many women “not representing true women’s concerns” showed up. God have mercy on his soul.
The damage Weakland did to the archdiocese of Milwaukee and the wider Church was incalculable. He was an open dissenter and heretic long before his homosexuality was confirmed (although, let’s face it, everyone knew). His personal vindictiveness very much resembles that of Cupich. The largely admirable record of Pope John Paul II was seriously stained by allowing this monster to remain in a position of power for those many years. Archbishop Listecki likewise disgraces himself by whitewashing Weakland’s record and career with this undeserved and dishonest tribute.
That he confessed his sins is what God wants us to do. The Lord asks us for obedience or confession. We know the better path.
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
John 20:23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
Matthew 16:18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
1 Peter 3:21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
The Lord is merciful and remembers we are only flesh. We find our salvation in the God of Jacob, praise His holy and righteous name. Lord Jesus you have redeemed us and we are eternally grateful.
I hope that Weakland made a full and sincere confession. If he publicly repented of his very public sins, I didn’t hear about it. Even after he was fully exposed, he resorted to lies and seIf-justification and remained defiant.
If the Church is to ever renew itself, a direct reckoning with the myriad scandals that the hierarchy (e.g. Weakland) has inflicted or has allowed to be inflicted (e.g. the pre-Francis Vatican on it, must occur. The statement release by Listecki does just the opposite by lauding a man who did so much evil while his superiors, who should have stopped him quickly, neglected to do their duty.
By all accounts, Weakland was notorious prior to being named bishop of Milwaukee. While I have no special knowledge of what it was like there in 1977, it is probably safe to say that the diocese was reeling from what was unleashed on the Church and society in the wake of the 1960s. Appointing someone with a reputation like his should have been unthinkable. Allowing him to reign for twenty-five years while he busied himself very openly in every manner of heresy and destruction was inexcusable. Portraying him in positive light on his passing is an insult to all those who suffered as a result of his misdeeds.
Typical of homosexuals (98+ percent), he was also pro-abortion. It could frequently be comical the way he would dodge a direct question on the matter, immediately going into the other-issuses-too mode. When he once held a “listening session” of women in his diocese open to the press expecting all the usual griping about female ordination and evil patriarchy, etc…, he instead got a bunch of women speaking of their pride that the Church defended the unborn. Weakland was embarrassed and apologized to the press that so many women “not representing true women’s concerns” showed up. God have mercy on his soul.
The damage Weakland did to the archdiocese of Milwaukee and the wider Church was incalculable. He was an open dissenter and heretic long before his homosexuality was confirmed (although, let’s face it, everyone knew). His personal vindictiveness very much resembles that of Cupich. The largely admirable record of Pope John Paul II was seriously stained by allowing this monster to remain in a position of power for those many years. Archbishop Listecki likewise disgraces himself by whitewashing Weakland’s record and career with this undeserved and dishonest tribute.
That he confessed his sins is what God wants us to do. The Lord asks us for obedience or confession. We know the better path.
1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
John 20:23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
Matthew 16:18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
1 Peter 3:21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
The Lord is merciful and remembers we are only flesh. We find our salvation in the God of Jacob, praise His holy and righteous name. Lord Jesus you have redeemed us and we are eternally grateful.
I hope that Weakland made a full and sincere confession. If he publicly repented of his very public sins, I didn’t hear about it. Even after he was fully exposed, he resorted to lies and seIf-justification and remained defiant.
If the Church is to ever renew itself, a direct reckoning with the myriad scandals that the hierarchy (e.g. Weakland) has inflicted or has allowed to be inflicted (e.g. the pre-Francis Vatican on it, must occur. The statement release by Listecki does just the opposite by lauding a man who did so much evil while his superiors, who should have stopped him quickly, neglected to do their duty.
By all accounts, Weakland was notorious prior to being named bishop of Milwaukee. While I have no special knowledge of what it was like there in 1977, it is probably safe to say that the diocese was reeling from what was unleashed on the Church and society in the wake of the 1960s. Appointing someone with a reputation like his should have been unthinkable. Allowing him to reign for twenty-five years while he busied himself very openly in every manner of heresy and destruction was inexcusable. Portraying him in positive light on his passing is an insult to all those who suffered as a result of his misdeeds.
Thank you for your insight. It is sad and yet, I also pray he repented.