MILWAUKEE –– In March, he formed a commission to review sexual abuse allegations against local priests. In April, he announced that the Milwaukee Archdiocese would adopt a zero tolerance policy toward molestation.
Now it's May, and Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland is himself the focus of scandal.
Roman Catholics across Wisconsin struggled Thursday to absorb news that Weakland, who has served the archdiocese for 25 years, had paid a former theology student $450,000 to settle a claim of sexual assault more than two decades ago.
Weakland acknowledged that he paid the settlement after the accuser, Paul Marcoux, went public earlier Thursday. He denied ever molesting anyone, but asked the Vatican to expedite the resignation he submitted earlier this year after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75.
"I want to cry and crawl under my bed," said Marquette Law School Dean Howard Eisenberg, who heads the commission created by Weakland. "You don't know where the next shoe is."
In a statement released Thursday, Weakland said, "I have never abused anyone. I have not seen Paul Marcoux for more than 20 years. Because I accept the agreement's confidentiality provision, I will make no comment about its contents."
Marcoux, now 53, said he was drunk when Weakland tried to assault him in 1979, when he was a Marquette University student in his 30s. He said he did not go to police because two priests – a cousin and a friend – advised against it.
"In my heart, I don't believe it," said Dolores Arango, 77, of Milwaukee as she left Mass on the Marquette campus.
"We, of course, are of heavy heart today," the Rev. Tom Schloemer said at the Mass. "Most of us are probably still in shock."
ABC News first reported Weakland agreed to pay Marcoux under a legal settlement, although Marcoux had not sued the archbishop.
Marcoux told The Associated Press that Weakland seemed infatuated with him and later made sexual advances that he brushed aside.
In recent years, a dozen Roman Catholic bishops worldwide have been publicly accused of misconduct. Weakland's case stands out in part because of his stature in the church.
Weakland, the worldwide leader of the Benedictine order for a decade before coming to Milwaukee, started an innovative program about 12 years ago that provided support for priest abuse victims and treatment for offenders.
Peter Isely, a Milwaukee psychotherapist abused by a priest as a boy, said he was extremely saddened – but not surprised – by the allegation against the archbishop.
"It's one piece of evidence about why his leadership has been so compromised on this issue," he said. "It's a pattern of concealing, covering up, hiding criminal behavior."
In a recently released 1993 deposition, Weakland said he moved the Rev. William Effinger to a new church after the priest admitted molesting a 13-year-old boy. The archbishop didn't acknowledge the allegation to parishioners until years later, after another abuse claim was made against Effinger.
In an interview with the AP, Marcoux said he and Weakland had had several drinks the night of the alleged assault. They drove back to Weakland's home, where the archbishop invited him upstairs and tried to rape him, Marcoux said.
The accuser said Weakland later made lesser advances, but he continued spending time with the archbishop because he was interested in becoming a priest.
"It was flattering to have the Archbishop of Milwaukee – regarded as a progressive, intelligent bishop – interested in me," Marcoux said. "I realized how much in love he was and how obsessed he was with me ... but I was not interested in a romantic relationship with him."
He said he now regrets not going to the police at the time.
An August 1980 letter from Weakland to Marcoux, published Friday in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, indicates the two had a close relationship. It says Weakland gave Marcoux $14,000 for a new ministry, and suggests the archbishop felt pressured to donate more – though Marcoux denied Thursday that he ever extorted money from Weakland.
In the letter, the archbishop expressed anguish at not being able to maintain a relationship with Marcoux. He writes that he wept as he penned the letter, which closes with the words, "I love you."
"During the last months, I have come to know how strained I was, tense, pensive, without much joy," he wrote. "I felt like the world's worst hypocrite. So gradually I came back to the importance of celibacy in my life."
Marcoux said he suffered from depression. He said he wrote to the archbishop in 1997 asking to discuss the alleged assault, but was rebuffed.
Lawyers later advised him to pursue a monetary settlement because the statute of limitations for criminal charges had expired.
In other developments:
– In Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony and law enforcement officials agreed on procedures under which the church will cooperate in investigations of abuse by priests, church officials said.
– Baltimore police said they are starting an inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse by the Rev. Maurice Blackwell, the priest who was shot last week by a man who accused him of fondling him a decade ago.