Milwaukee Archbishop Denies Abuse Charges

Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee on Thursday denied that he was stepping down in response to allegations of sexual misconduct.

“I have never abused anyone,” the Roman Catholic prelate said in a statement.

Charges against Weakland surfaced Thursday morning, when ABC News reported a claim by a former Milwaukee resident that Weakland sexually assaulted him more than 20 years ago.

Likening the experience to “date rape,” Paul Marcoux said the incident happened in 1979 when he was a 30-year-old theology graduate student at Marquette University.

Marcoux, 54, said Weakland tried to kiss and fondle him. Marcoux could not be reached for comment at his home in San Francisco.

His charges are documented in a settlement agreement obtained by a Milwaukee television station in which the archdiocese and the archbishop jointly agreed to pay Marcoux $450,000. The agreement contained a confidentiality clause.

“I’ve been involved in the cover-up,” Marcoux told ABC. “I accepted money to stay silent, not to speak out about what was going on.”

Marcoux also cited a 1980 letter Weakland wrote to him as proof of the psychological damage he suffered. The letter suggests that Marcoux and Weakland had an intense, emotional relationship.

Weakland turned in his resignation on his birthday, April 2, when he reached the church’s mandatory retirement age of 75.

In a statement read Thursday by an archdiocese spokesman, Weakland said: “Paul Marcoux has made reference to a settlement agreement between us. Because I accept the agreement’s confidentiality provision, I will make no comment about its contents.”

Weakland also sought to reassure parishioners that their donations did not help pay for the settlement with Marcoux.

Saying that the archbishop used his authority as a church leader to take advantage of him, Marcoux cited the 1980 letter, in which Weakland expresses his love for Marcoux and describes his anguish over not being able to maintain a relationship with him.

“During the last months I have come to know how strained I was, tense, pensive, without much joy. I couldn’t pray at all. I just did not seem to be honest with God. I felt I was fleeing from Him, from facing Him,” Weakland wrote.

“I felt like the world’s worst hypocrite. So gradually I came back to the importance of celibacy in my life--not just a physical celibacy but the freedom the celibate community gives.”

Weakland said he is awaiting the Vatican’s formal approval of his resignation.

“I have now today asked the Vatican to accelerate its acceptance,” he said in his statement. “I ask for your prayers and healing.”

In related developments Thursday in the growing scandal of sexual abuse by priests:

*A suspended Maryland priest was arrested Wednesday night on charges of felony child abuse and sex offenses for allegedly molesting an 11-year-old boy in 1980. Father Brian M. Cox, 63, who runs a ministry for the homeless, was removed from St. John Catholic Church in Westminster in 1995, when similar allegations arose involving another youth.

*A priest in New York surrendered to investigators Thursday on charges of sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl. Father Francis X. Nelson, 38, a priest at St. Charles Borromeo Church in Manhattan, was indicted on two counts of second-degree sexual abuse and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.

Times researcher John Beckham and Associated Press contributed to this report.