MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Catholic Reporter
Brian Roewe | Jul. 2, 2013
Archbishop Rembert George Weakland of Milwaukee first heard of sexual abuse allegations related to Fr. William J. Effinger during the summer of 1979.
Fourteen years later, Effinger was charged with sexually assaulting a teenage boy in the late 1980s at his home in Sheboygan, Wis. He would eventually end up in prison while close to 10 others would allege the priest abused them as children during his 30-plus years in ministry.
Retrospectively, the Effinger case would become a turning point in the evolution of how Weakland, who served as Milwaukee archbishop from 1977 to 2002, viewed the sexual abuse of minors by clergy.
In an October 2011 deposition, released among the 6,000 pages of documents made public by the archdiocese Monday, Weakland told victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson he immediately sent Effinger for “psychiatric or psychological treatment” upon learning of the accusations. That decision, Weakland said, followed the general practice in place when a case came to the archbishop’s attention and spoke to the way he and others viewed sexual abuse at the time: that with treatment, a priest could be cured and returned to ministry.
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