Weakland’s career was a classic example of how the Lavender Mafia operates: Promotion, Protection and Prevarication. Wikipedia in this case actually does a rather good job detailing his career, and how he might as well have had a sign labeling him Homosexual Predator hanging around his neck. Go here to read it.
Classic New York Times whitewashing of one of their heroes:
He did his best to destroy the Church in Milwaukee. He was a wolf in shepherd’s clothing. Thank God his generation is passing on. May God have mercy on him.
Matthew 18:6
Douay-Rheims Bible
But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.
My beam in my eye distorts my vision, hence I must be very careful about making judgments about others. In Weak-lands case God will give mercy as Weakland meted it out to others. Children that have not received mercy from the deceased but instead had received pain, anguish and shame from the shepherd’s vices, will be the very one’s who will assist in the final trial.
Their forgiveness might just save his soul.
As I recall he was something of a social radical also. Seems the combination is not unknown in psycho-social activist circles. Guess the strictures of Benedictine life were too confining for him.
I read this today.
“Judas Iscariot has died. A fiscally prudent disciple and one of the original Twelve Apostles, his legacy was marred by revelations that he was paid money to betray Our Savior. I considered him a friend and mourn his loss. May he rest in peace.”
“Darth Vader has died. An erudite scholar, gifted mentor and Jedi Knight, his legacy was marred by revelations that his behavior contributed to climate change on the planet Alderaan. I considered him a friend and mourn his loss. May he rest in peace.”
Who trust the finance of offices at the dioceses? “he did not understand that child sexual abuse was a crime”. Speechless. This is a man who appears with all his higher education to be brilliant and he couldn’t figure out child sexual abuse was a crime. Did he even think it was a sin? Probably not with his long active homosexual history. I’ve read that many priests of that persuasion don’t think it is.
A gal from MN yesterday at the Rosary Tea alluded to the Milwaukee scandal, but she didn’t mention his name.
Thanks for posting.
Who trust the finance of offices at the dioceses? “he did not understand that child sexual abuse was a crime”.
It’s rather like Bishop O’Brien of Phoenix saying he’d have no idea of how to call the police. Not merely a lie, but an insanely stupid lie.
Note, even after he was exposed as having embezzled $14,000 to pay off a blackmailer, Peggy Steinfels offered that she found him a ‘good bishop’.
Comment of the week JFK! Take ‘er away Sam!
The blindness of ordained Catholics toward lay victims of their brethren still manages to shock, if not surprise.
When even a cleric of moderate cunning like Martin thinks the most scandalous thing Weakland did was pay off his “Nantucket Dream” male lover, it’s easy to understand why the American church is cratering.
Martin couldn’t even utter a pro-forma statement of concern for the victims of the child rape machine Weakland abetted. Why bother about them, right, Jim?
Yuck.
My Nantucket dream is a Natucket sleigh ride in an ocean kayak with a fifty pound striped bass on-
OK, follow me on this one.
Issue A – homosexuality in general. Issue B – gay priests. Issue C – paedo stuff. Liberals pretend like the liberal position is A & B but obviously not C. Conservatives sometimes forget that liberals project that opinion, because they can see the link between all three. But what Father Martin does here is give away the truth. If A and B are so reasonable and C is so unacceptable, then how could he write that tweet? The A, B, and C are scandals, not simply a marred reputation because of paying for B.
That was a good one, JFK.
The one way to deal with this –> no more money in the offering basket. Starve these sex perverts and heretics. When that heretical Marxist Peronist Caudillo gets deposed or dies, then consider changing, assuming that his replacement isn’t as bad or worse. But wait for proof first. By their fruits ye shall know them.
LQC, “fruits” no pun intended?
I considered him a friend and mourn his loss*
Something is wrong with him. To me that says James Martin could be a closeted homosexual himself.
Weakland had no place as a priest in the Church. No place at all. He’s soon learning this I am sure. God have Mercy on his soul. He’ll need lots of it.
Weakland, as well as being a skillful political manipulator, was also a highly skilled professional concert pianist (although his PhD. was in musicology, sometimes considered a copout by performance musicians). Long ago, a Vatican II Jesuit liturgist at the University I attended said from
his personal knowledge that it was Weakland who had drafted the musically unappealing substitute “chant” (it really has no predecessor in Roman Catholic chant history ) used in the Preface dialogue, the Preface, and the Our Father in the Roman Missal of 1969 for the so-called Mass of Paul VI.
If you read his autobiography, “A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church,” Weakland openly describes his close collaboration with the notorious Archbp. Annibale Bugnini, Weakland supplying the “music,” and of their meeting furtively many nights in 1966-1967 somewhere in the Vatican or close nearby, and working feverishly on the infamous “New Mass” which they unveiled to Paul VI sometime in early 1968—after which they then insisted on his quick approval saying the Consilium had composed and approved their creation. (In his autobiography, Fr. Louis Bouyer, a member of the Consilium drafted by Paul VI to try to get the group on a more orthodox track, says Bugnini would play this bridge game between the Pope and the Consilium, trying to finesse them both.)
It is also interesting how Weakland is very careful to avoid discussion of his fully developed homosexual behavior during Vatican II and during when he was abbot primate of the worldwide Benedictine Federation (1967-1977), of which he was a decade-long unquestioned “Vatican II authority” but complete wrecking ball for traditional Benedictine worship, musical tradition, chant, and liturgy. Again, an unconfirmed persistent rumor was that Weakland, a very tall and large man (reputedly 6’ 4” or more), was a popular part of a circle of very homosexual active Vatican II “authorities” who had regular nocturnal trysts during the Council’s sessions (Gregory A. Baum and Bugnini being among the others repeatedly mentioned).
These are just some of the many contradictions and permanently unanswered questions about Rembert Weakland. Only time and further historical analysis will really sort them out.
If you read his autobiography, “A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church,” Weakland openly describes his close collaboration with the notorious Archbp. Annibale Bugnini, Weakland supplying the “music,” and of their meeting furtively many nights in 1966-1967 somewhere in the Vatican or close nearby, and working feverishly on the infamous “New Mass” which they unveiled to Paul VI sometime in early 1968—after which they then insisted on his quick approval saying the Consilium had composed and approved their creation. (In his autobiography, Fr. Louis Bouyer, a member of the Consilium drafted by Paul VI to try to get the group on a more orthodox track, says Bugnini would play this bridge game between the Pope and the Consilium, trying to finesse them both.)
All Paul had to do was say “let’s just forget about this”. The responsibility for the wreckage of the liturgy lies ultimately with one man.
[…] Links: The Lavender Mafia Mourns One of Its Champions – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American Catholic If There were a “Woken Inquisition”. […]
I’m actually surprised Weakland was still alive. I thought he’d died a long time ago.
“Adolph Hitler, a shrewd and resourceful former Austrian corporal who rose all the way up to the rank of German Fuhrer died of a mortal gun shot wound to the head. His legacy was marred by the death of six million Jews, Europe becoming a pile of rubble, and a World War. I considered him a friend and mourn his loss. May he Rest In Peace.”
Sad fact is that Weakland’s record on clerical sex abuse isn’t that much worse than that of many of the world’s bishops. And that’s really saying something! If there is a bishop who has a good track record of dealing with sexually predator priests, I’m not aware of it.
Ezabelle, by the way, the esteemed Fr. James Martin, SJ, also glowingly praised the late Vatican II peritus, Gregory Baum, in Oct. 2017, at the time of Baum’s death, of course knowing Baum had finally decided to be openly homosexual in the years prior to his death.
Another “coincidence.”
To love our neighbor as ourselves; to have a relationship is to help our neighbor, our friend get to heaven. Go to all nations and spread the Good News, as Mother Angelica would say: “Jesus loves you.” Sexual abuse, sodomy excludes the love of Jesus and drags the soul into eternal darkness which is hell. God is love. Depriving another soul of the knowledge of God is damnable.
Would Weakland be happy in heaven? Maybe Weakland had a priest at his death.
If Hitler repented with a bullet in his head, Hitler may be in heaven. “There are many rooms in my Father’s house.”
Hell is seeing all the joy one has missed.
Steve- hmmm not surprised. He is spiritually sick. James Martin and his ministry for homosexuals is troubling. If you want to minister to homosexuals, tell them it’s sinful first and foremost. Anything else is leading them down an easy path to hell.
Right Ezabelle. It is Father James Martin’s job to get his friends to heaven. He promised God this in Holy Orders
Father James Martin’s broken vows make of him a liar.
“He didn’t know?”
Sometimes resolving such moral confusion as we too often see with some of our Catholic higher-ups (and maybe even ourselves) is that we slip into the grave error of confusing being nice, being friendly, with being good. I learned that years ago when I saw a picture of a smiling, friendly, Adolph Hitler at his mountain retreat playing with his dog and chatting with friends. I began to think that he was almost likable.
Agree Mary.
[…] criticized in multiple venues . Donald McClarey's The American Catholic is just one site that looked aghast at Fr. Martin's all but ignoring the real problems with Bishop Weakland. To see Fr. Martin's response, you'd think the baddies were the ones who had a problem with […]
Martin did apologize.
https://twitter.com/jamesmartinsj/status/1562425300654637056?s=21&t=XrPQulF0L13aqOaCJmBUFA