Rembert passes the buck

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Mar 26, 2010

In July 1996, Archbishop Rembert Weakland wrote to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith about a problem that, he said, had "only recently… come to light"-- the charges against Father Lawrence Murphy. Only recently? That was 40 years after the first complaints against Murphy had arisen, and 3 years after Archbishop Weakland himself has sent Murphy to a psychologist for evaluation.

Today, from his comfortable retirement, Weakland complains that the Vatican didn't respond quickly enough to his inquiry. "They certainly delayed a lot more than I would have liked," he said. But three months after he wrote to the CDF, a canonical trial of Father Murphy was underway. That's three months, not three years.

So who was responsible for the delay? The same man who was responsible for the disciplinary oversight of priests in the Milwaukee archdiocese. The same man who was responsible for the personal behavior of Rembert Weakland. The same man who's now pointing a finger toward Rome.