In the 1980s, the bishops of the Milwaukee archdiocese dealt with
priests who sexually abused minors in much the same way they handled
those who were alcoholics or even those who had credit problems: They
assumed the issue could be resolved through therapy or similar means,
former Archbishop Rembert George Weakland said in a 2011 deposition released this week.
"We were probably all of us naive in thinking that it was a question
of willpower and a question of self-discipline," Weakland said. "I
handled cases [in the 1980s] thinking, hoping, praying that it would be
the last one I would have to deal with."
He said the bishops viewed pedophilia as an "affliction" and,
following practices used with other issues, did not consider it
necessary to alert parishioners to previous instances of sexual
misconduct.
"There are a lot of things that when you make an assignment you don't
disclose," Weakland said in the deposition. "If they had alcohol
problems in the past, if they had credit problems with their checking
accounts ... I don't think one makes a list of the foibles and the
problems that way so it would not have been customary to make that kind
of a profile of a priest."
The deposition was made public as part of an agreement in the
Milwaukee archdiocese's bankruptcy proceedings. Weakland's deposition
provides some insight into the mindset of priests in the era when the
church's sexual abuse crisis was beginning to gain traction. In the
deposition, Weakland said he did treat priests with more leniency
because they were men of the cloth.
"I admit that in many ways we treated, or I treated, the priest a
little bit differently than I would have treated an ordinary school
teacher," Weakland said. "There was a certain obligation that I had
toward the priests that went beyond what I might have toward anyone
else."
This was his second deposition in regard to the accusations made
against priests for sexually assaulting children.
In his first, given in 2008,
he said he allowed priests guilty of sexual abuse to continue serving
other parishes without warning parishioners or alerting police.
In the 2011 deposition, Weakland said the diocese told bishops at
their 1985 annual June conference, which was devoted to the issue of
sexual abuse, that they should not dismiss priests but try to work with
them.
Weakland said he remained concerned about the priests' rights and
believed they deserved compassion.
"We all have and must have tremendous regard and concern about the
victims, but as Christians, at least, I would hold you also have concern
about every human being, which includes the perpetrators," he said. "I
do have a concern for the perpetrators. I met so many very talented,
wonderful people who will not be able to contribute to society because
of this awful, I will call it, affliction and danger that they pose to
society."
When asked by Jeff Anderson, the leading lawyer for the victims who
have filed claims against the archdiocese, why this threat to children
was not addressed for decades, Weakland said it took years for him and
for other church officials to recognize that when it came to the sexual
abuse of minors, such impulses could not be controlled or eradicated
through therapy.
According to Weakland, everyone at that time had to
learn how to deal with these issues through experience, and the Vatican
was no exception.
"I would say that they were behind the curve like the rest of us were," he said.
After being initially alerted to cases of sexual abuse in the late
1970s, Weakland said he didn't really become aware of the breadth of the
problem until Fr. William J. Effinger was accused on TV in 1992.
"I became aware of the way in which, not just the individuals, but
whole families could be hurt by the molestation and how difficult it was
to come to any healing," Weakland said.
Weakland said even through the early 1990s, he believed perpetrators
were of little risk to society as long as they had good supervision. He
said he started to see himself as a probation officer and that because
he was now alerting staffs and parish councils about the past misconduct
of priests, those priests would not be a danger to children.
As the extent of the sexual abuse problem became clearer, the Milwaukee archdiocese had to decide how to address the problem.
"There was a certain kind of fear of scandal," Weakland said. "Nobody likes to put their dirty laundry out on the line."
Nine years after Weakland's resignation, the Milwaukee archdiocese
became the eighth in the nation to file for bankruptcy.
It spent more
than $29 million over 20 years to cover costs associated with the sex
abuse scandal.
Weakland was archbishop during the majority of the sex
abuse cases.