ARCHBISHOP REMBERT WEAKLAND
In November 1990, the Vatican blocked the Catholic faculty at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, from giving Archbishop Weakland an honorary degree. The Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education said the action was taken because the archbishop's statements on abortion has confused U.S. Catholics. The Vatican was able to block the degree because this university has a pontifical charter.
A request to condemn this action given at the closed executive session at the U.S. bishops' general meeting later in the month was met with an "ovation," as reported by CNS in Catholic Chronicle, 11/23/90.
From Catholic News Service, 6/5/97. Archbishop Rembert Weakland disputed Cardinal Ratzinger's contention that "extremely serious damage" was done to the Church in the adoption of the New Mass.
The real damage, according to Weakland, was caused by John Paul's decision to permit use of the Tridentine (Latin Mass) rite in 1984. He said those actions "totally derailed the liturgical renewal" and contributed to a "devastating" division and disunity within the church.
WEAKLAND VS THE WANDERER CONTINUES
In a front page story (10/5/95), The Wanderer gladly proclaims, "Brits To Weakland: 'You Have Nothing to Tell Us."' The story Is about members of a lay group appealed to Cardinal Hume to cancel his invitation to Archbishop Rembert Weakland to address the National Conference of Priests in Birmingham. The group charged that Weakland would lead their priests astray. (Cardinal Hume did not withdraw the invitation.)
Among other things, Weakland said, "It is difficult for outsiders to understand how the Church grows. It is not by continuous and gradual modification. Instead, tensions build up and foment under the surface while the visible exterior of the Church seems to remain the same. At a given moment an eruption takes place - as it did in Vatican II.
"We priests, as leaders of the Church and world, have before us two alternatives. We can simply grieve and lament the losses of the past. or we can accept the call courageously to build for the future. A recent study of priests in the United States showed they were risktakers, people willing to live on the edge of uncertainty."
The Wanderer reported Weakland said priests need to be both prophets and healers, especially in the United States, where "a nasty mood ... has also infiltrated the parishes in general."
Weakland said "he personally has tried not to stoop to street fighting, but to maintain the position of priest-healer, speaking without acrimony, mean-spiritedness, or name-calling" - an assertion with
which theWanderer felt many Milwaukee [Weakland's diocese] would find preposterous.
Another article reported that in his 9/20 column in The Catholic Herald, Weakland blasted the members of his flock, who spoke to The Wanderer about problems in a local Catholic high school.
After labeling The Wanderer's Sept. 14th article "scurrilous" Weakand wrote: "We must all be concerned about orthodoxy in Church teaching. But groups of ill-informed vigilantes are springing up all over the country. As in the days of the Inquisition, these self-appointed watchdogs of the faith, with their meager knowledge of theology, seek to find heresy under every stone."
We have received a report from a converted Catholic in the Milwaukee areas that Archbishop Weakland has begun a remodeling (and it is far along) of St. John's Cathedral in Milwaukee and just recently he received a letter from the Vatican telling him to stop because it is a violation of Canon Law. Weakland has responded that it is no big deal and it is a minor difference. The opinion here in Wisconsin is that Weakland is going to defy the Vatican
An article in the August 5 edition of Our Sunday Visitor says: "The proposed renovation does seem to represent a rather radical rearrangement of very traditional space," Msgr M. Francis Mannion, a sacramental theologian said, "And . . the concerns about respecting the style of the building do seem to have some legitimacy."
He added, "Thoughtful, well-educated Cathiolics do have legitinmate concerns about the severity of the renovation of a historical cathedral."
However, Msgr. Mannion also said that the renovation appears to be within established norms for church renovation.
"One may object . . . but that doesn't mean the bishop lacks the decision-making right," he said