Abp. Weakland's Name Surfaces---Again--in Murphy Case

Well, well.

Fr. Brundage issued a revision/correction/extension of his original article which explains the letter he drafted asking for "abatement" of the Murphy case.

...Since I do not have access to the Father Murphy file, last week as I worked on my column, I downloaded the case files that were on the Journal-Sentinel’s website. Those were the documents I had to reconstruct the events of 12-14 years ago.

However, in the file e-mailed to me by reporter Johnson was a August 15, 1998 draft of a letter that I wrote and Archbishop Weakland slightly edited. This draft letter became the text of the August 19, 1998 letter from Archbishop Weakland to then-secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone in which Archbishop Weakland declared that he had instructed me to formally abate the case. This letter was not part of the file that I had access to and I had not seen that letter in nearly 12 years.

In all honesty, I do not remember this memo but I do admit to being wrong on this issue and I apologize for my mistake. Father Murphy’s death 2 days after Archbishop Weakland’s August 19, 1998 letter made the matter moot as de-facto death permanently abated the case.

As I suspected when Ms. Johnson first sprung this news, the fact is that Fr. Brundage WORKED for Rembert Weakland, and Fr. Brundage did what he was told to do.

We're back to Square One: the Bishop is responsible for his Diocese. HE teaches, sanctifies, and GOVERNS that Diocese, for better or worse.

You may draw your own conclusions about the governance of Rembert Weakland--but recall that he did initiate the proceedings against Murphy.