Former Archbishop Comes Out

Former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who resigned in 2002 after it was revealed that his diocese paid off a man he was accused of sexually assaulting, is about to publish a memoir outing himself. (A bit late, eh?)

Archbishop Rembert Weakland, former head of the Milwaukee archdiocese, "is up front about his homosexuality in a church that preferred to ignore gays," Publisher's Weekly wrote in a review Monday. The book, "A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop," is set to be released in June and is described by the publisher as a self-examination by Weakland of his "psychological, spiritual and sexual growth." The Vatican says that men with "deep-seated" attraction to other men should not be ordained. Weakland stepped down quickly after Paul Marcoux, a former Marquette University theology student, revealed in May 2002 that he was paid $450,000 to settle a sexual assault claim he made against the archbishop more than two decades earlier. The money came from the archdiocese.

Last fall Weakland admitted that he returned guilty priests to service after they'd been accused of sexual improprieties.