Former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland Comes Out as Gay

I cannot say that I am surprised by the admission of former Roman Catholic Archbishop Rembert Weakland that he is gay in his new memoirs, "A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop." Indeed, while I make no excuses for him, I suspect that Weakland is but one of thousands self-hating closet case within the Catholic Church hierarchy who has tried to suppressed his sexual orientation and often transferred his internalized homophobia to normal, self-accepting gays. The closet and its attraction fueled by a gay-bashing society/churches is an insidious cancer that needs to be eradicated in a gay accepting society where modern medical and mental health knowledge overcome superstition and religious based ignorance. I know that in my own life, the brainwashing I received being raised Catholic truly set the stage for me believing that being in the closet was my only option for many, many years. Here are some highlights from the Associated Press:

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A Roman Catholic archbishop who resigned in 2002 over a sex and financial scandal involving a man has written a memoir that describes how he struggled with being gay. Archbishop Rembert Weakland, former head of the Milwaukee archdiocese, "is up front about his homosexuality in a church that preferred to ignore gays," Publisher's Weekly wrote in a review Monday. The book, "A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop," is set to be released in June and is described by the publisher as a self-examination by Weakland of his "psychological, spiritual and sexual growth."

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The Vatican says that men with "deep-seated" attraction to other men should not be ordained.
Weakland stepped down quickly after Paul Marcoux, a former Marquette University theology student, revealed in May 2002 that he was paid $450,000 to settle a sexual assault claim he made against the archbishop more than two decades earlier.

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The Archdiocese of Milwaukee released a public statement last week alerting local Catholics that the book is soon to be published and that it deals in part with Weakland's relationship with Marcoux and the scandal. "Some people will be angry about the book, others will support it," the archdiocese said. Weakland, who has been a hero for liberal Catholics because of his work on social justice and other issues, will also address in the memoirs his failures to stop abusive priests.

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U.S. Catholics have long debated whether the priesthood had become a predominantly gay vocation. Estimates vary from 25 percent to 50 percent, according to a review of research on the issue by the Rev. Donald Cozzens, author of "The Changing Face of the Priesthood." Cozzens, a former seminary rector, said in an interview that Weakland's acknowledgment of his sexual orientation "cuts into the denial that relatively few priests or bishops are gay."

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Unless and until the Roman Catholic Church rejects 13th century knowledge and embraces modern knowledge on sexual orientation, more stories such as my own and the sad story of former Archbishop Weakland will continue to play out.