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	Weakland Gives Priests Abuse Data In Letter, He Reveals Number of Accusations, Cost to Archdiocese By Marie Rohde Milwaukee Journal Sentinel March 24, 2002 Milwaukee's Catholic Archbishop Rembert Weakland has written to local priests about the number of child sexual abuse accusations against area priests, and how much those accusations have cost the archdiocese. Weakland has refused to make such information public in the past, and he did not indicate that it would be available to anyone other than the priests. He has declined to discuss the issue with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. His comments came in an interview with Mike Gousha scheduled to be aired at 10:35 p.m. today on WTMJ-TV (Channel 4). Weakland said the numbers don't tell the story and that the news media have used them to give a false impression of sexual misconduct among priests. "If we are cautious about the numbers, it's because the press gave the impression that Boston had 80 priests accused, therefore there were 80 out there picking on little kids," he continued. "That would be so false an image. "Maybe what we all have to do at this point in history is get a little better sophistication to know what's going on," Weakland said. Weakland said that sexual activity with a child who has not reached puberty is very serious and that the perpetrator is "incurable." But he drew a distinction between that and sexual contact between an adult and an older minor. "Is it (the contact) one instance? Is it a group of instances?" Weakland said. "Everything has to be looked at." Bishops across the country, including Weakland, have been hit with allegations that they failed to protect children from priests who had been accused of sexual abuse. The accusations are not new. The first wave came in the mid-1980s, when a number of child victims came forward. That was followed but large numbers of adults, mostly men, who said priests had abused them as children. In the Milwaukee Archdiocese, there have been several criminal and civil cases. The case of William Effinger, a priest assigned to a Sheboygan parish who was convicted in 1993 of sexual misconduct with a youth, was the first to draw sustained public criticism. Weakland admitted that he knew of allegations against Effinger 14 years earlier but believed that treatment and monitoring would be sufficient. Weakland has also acknowledged that he knew of the last allegations against Effinger weeks before taking him out of the parish, saying that Effinger told him he needed to find a place for his sister who lived with him in the rectory. Effinger was quietly moved from parish to parish before the allegations became public, and after his arrest, scores of others came forward and said they were victims. Weakland has not revealed how many approached the church before the public scandal. Although he said he was acting on the advice of mental health experts, Weakland's comments were attacked by leading therapists who said the conventional wisdom for years had been to remove abusers from situations where they would have access to children. Speaking to Gousha, Weakland defended his performance on the issue. "We started to deal with it 15 years ago," Weakland said. "I think I have a good track record, especially with victims." Peter Isely, a Milwaukee man abused as a child by a priest and who is now a national advocate for the survivors of such abuse, disagrees. "The archbishop has never met with the victims' organizations, locally or nationally," Isely said. "I do not know of a group of victims who have ever come forward to defend and praise the archdiocese for the treatment they have received." Isely also took issue with Weakland's distinction between priests involved with young children and those who who have improper relations with teenagers. "Each act of sexual abuse -- whether forced upon a child or a minor -- creates devastating and lifelong consequences," Isely said. "The laws of our society reflect the belief that the sexual abuse of a minor is a crime. The archdiocese needs to fully support this position and remove all men from the priesthood who have committed criminal acts against youngsters, whether that youngster is prepubescent or post-pubescent." Weakland said sexual abuse is more devastating when a priest is involved because it affects all of the church. He said he believes that the hierarchy needs to examine its training of priests, noting that the typical pedophile's psychological, social and emotional development is arrested at about age 13. In the past, that often resulted in a seminarian whom church officials welcomed. "In the past, we thought, 'Boy, these are great candidates because they are observant and kind of childlike' when, if fact, they could be more dangerous." Weakland, who reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75 next month, likened the controversy of pedophile priests today to alcoholic priests who were considered the major problem when he was a young priest. Some said the answer to alcoholism was to let priests marry, but that's not the answer for either alcoholism or pedophilia, he said. Nonetheless, the celibacy question plays a role, he said. "The pool of celibates is so limited that to get the number of priests, the quality of priests that we need, the pool is just too small," Weakland said. "But that's another story." Channel 4 made a portion of Weakland's interview available to the Journal Sentinel on Saturday. According to the station, the bishop also discussed his forthcoming retirement and other matters. There were 432 diocesan priests in the 10-county Archdiocese of Milwaukee as of March 5. Of those, 152 were retired. Most of the 280 other diocesan priests were serving in one or more of the archdiocese's 226 parishes. The others were studying, teaching, working in administrative positions or could not be assigned to a ministry for various reasons
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