Archbishop Settles Sex Assault Claim

May 23, 2002 -- Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland has urged the Catholic Church to open up about its growing sex-abuse crisis, but he is now accused of trying to keep sexual assault allegations against himself a secret, ABCNEWS has learned.

Paul Marcoux, a 53-year-old former theology student at Marquette University in Milwaukee, said the archbishop sexually assaulted him more than 20 years ago when he went to Weakland for advice about going into the priesthood.

Weakland, along with the archdiocese, later paid Marcoux $450,000 to sign a settlement agreement in which Marcoux agreed to take no further action regarding his allegations. He also vowed never to tell anyone. Also in the agreement, obtained by ABCNEWS, Weakland denied the allegations. The deal was hammered out four years ago by the archbishop, Marcoux, and their respective lawyers.

"I've been involved in the cover-up. I've accepted money to be silent about it," Marcoux told ABCNEWS.

Neither Weakland nor the archdiocese would comment on the allegations, but the archdiocese released a statement today, after the ABCNEWS report aired on Good Morning America. Weakland also asked that the Vatican speed up his resignation, which was already in the works because he had turned 75.

"I have never abused anyone. I have not seen Paul Marcoux formore than 20 years," Weakland said in the statement, read byarchdiocesan spokesman Jerry Topczewski outside the archdioceseoffice in suburban St. Francis.

"Because I accept the agreement's confidentiality provision,"Weakland said in the statement, "I will make no comment about its contents."

A Church Leader

Weakland, 75, has been archbishop for 25 years, and is considered one of the most important leaders in the American Catholic Church. He was expected to play an important role at next month's meeting of U.S. bishops to deal with the church's growing sex abuse crisis. His plan for dealing with abuse cases has been touted as a national model.

"So, as long as the victims are OK about it, I have no problem opening up those cases," Weakland told reporters at a recent news conference.

But all the while, Marcoux said, this incident has been lurking in the archbishop's past.

Marcoux says he met Weakland in 1979 while attending Marquette University. He says the incident occurred in the archbishop's apartment, after a dinner, when he asked Weakland for advice about entering the priesthood.

"A short time later he was sitting next to me and then started to try to kiss me," Marcoux said. "And I would say, well, think of it in terms of date rape."

Weakland forced himself on him, pulling down his trousers, and trying to fondle him, Marcoux said.

‘The World’s Worst Hypocrite’

Over the next year, Marcoux says he only wanted a friendship, but the archbishop wanted more. He says the relationship essentially ended soon after Weakland wrote an 11-page letter to Marcoux, dated Aug. 25, 1980.

"I should not put down on paper what I would not want the whole world to read — but here goes anyway," he wrote.

Later on in the letter Weakland wrote, "I felt like the world's worst hypocrite so I gradually came back to the importance of celibacy in my life."

The letter makes it clear that even then, Marcoux was pressuring the archbishop for money. But Weakland claimed he could give no more.

"Paul, I really have given you all I personally possess," the letter said. "The $14,000 is really my personal limit."

But 16 years later, in 1997, with the powerful archbishop trying to deal with widespread allegations of abuse within the church, Marcoux was back, threatening to file his own lawsuit. This time, he got the money he sought, though Marcoux says that what he really wanted was an apology.

Marcoux acknowledges that some people might view the written agreement as blackmail.

"[It was] a settlement for a sexual assault case," Marcoux said. "And what I wanted to do was to have my day in court."

Settlement, But No Peace

Still, the money hasn't brought him solace, he said.

"I must say that even though I received a handsome settlement on it, it has not obviously brought me much peace in this thing," Marcoux said.

Some local critics of the church say the archbishop had no business making a secret payment of $450,000 simply to save himself from embarrassment.

"You just don't take church money to hush it up," said Peter Isley, whoheads the Milwaukee chapter of an organization of people who say they were abused by priests."That money is a trust given to the archdiocese to be used for the ministry. To be used to help people, to clothe people who don't have clothes, for God's sake! I mean what can you do with a couple hundred thousand dollars? There are people in this town starving!"

— ABCNEWS' Jill Rackmill contributed to this report and produced the story for Good Morning America.