Fāqūs I wrote about the career of Rembert Weakland in a piece published today at First Things. We had to cut some of Weakland’s words in the interest of space, but I wanted to offer to readers some fuller comments of his. He claims that the Church is really at fault for his use of diocesan money to pay off a former lover: he wasn’t paid enough.
There was another way I felt hemmed in, held hostage by the Church: it went back to another of my monastic vows. As a monk, I had found my vow of poverty liberating. My personal needs were taken care of by the monastery in a way that was more than adequate. But when at the age of fifty I became a bishop that vow was suspended by church law…. My salary was a thousand dollars a month. Out of that I had to take care of clothing, toiletries, books, music, vacations, and contributions to charities and other causes that I wanted to support…. By the time the lawsuit came I was receiving around $3,000 a month. I had managed to put a minimum amount in an IRA, but never had monies sufficient for purchasing anything substantial of my own…. The fact was that as a bishop there was no way for me to take care of an extraordinary personal need. I had to fall back on my dependency on the Church.
There you have it – he non prescription isotretinoin had to raid the collection basket because he had no money to pay for his personal “needs,” like burning through half a million dollars to buy his former lover’s silence.
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