NEW YORK - 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 on 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 Mr Weakland of his 'psychological, spiritual and sexual growth'. The Vatican says that men with 'deep-seated' attraction to other men should not be ordained.
Mr Weakland stepped down quickly after Paul Marcoux, a former Marquette University theology student, revealed in May 2002 that he was paid US$450,000 (S$659, 000) to settle a sexual assault claim he made against the archbishop more than two decades earlier. The money came from the archdiocese.
Mr Marcoux went public at the height of anger over the clergy sex abuse crisis, when Catholics and others were demanding that dioceses reveal the extent of molestation by clergy and how much had been confidentially spent to settle claims. Mr Weakland denied ever assaulting anyone. He apologized for concealing the payment.
The revelations rocked the Milwaukee archdiocese, which Mr Weakland had led since 1977. But when he publicly read a letter of apology for the scandal, Milwaukee parishioners gave him a a standing ovation.
Mr 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.
In a videotaped deposition released last November, Mr Weakland admitted returning guilty priests to active ministry without alerting parishioners or police.
US Catholics have long debated whether the priesthood has become a predominantly gay vocation.
Estimates vary from 25 per cent to 50 per cent, according to a review of research on the issue by the Reverend Donald Cozzens, author of 'The Changing Face of the Priesthood'. Rev 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.'
