Former Milwaukee Roman Catholic
Archbishop Rembert Weakland reveals he's gay in an upcoming memoir,
the AP reports.
Weakland resigned in 2002 amid
allegations of sexual and financial impropriety.
He told the Associated Press that
he tried to be as honest as possible without turning the book into a
“Jerry Springer.”
“I was very concerned that the book
not become a Jerry Springer, to satisfy people's prurient curiosity
or anything of this sort,” Weakland said. “At the same time, I
tried to be as honest as I can.”
“What I felt was that people who
loved me as bishop here, when they read the book will continue to
love me. The people who found it difficult, I hope will be helped a
little bit by the book,” he said.
Weakland stepped down from the
Milwaukee Archdiocese that he headed for more than 20 years after it
came to light that he had an affair with Paul Marcoux, a former Marquette
University theology student, and that Marcoux was paid $450,000 by
the archdiocese to settle a sexual assault claim leveled against
Weakland.
The Marcoux controversy erupted at the
height of the Catholic clergy sex abuse crisis in 2002.
The book, A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim
Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop, is to be released in
June.