As I was slumming through the site of the Fishwrap (aka National Schismatic Reporter) I stepped in their piece about retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland’s role in the clerical sexual abuse scandals in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

I got to the end of the piece and scratched my head.  I had the sense that Fishwrap gave Archbp. Weakland a pass.

Among other things, Weakland explained that, back in the day, … well… let’s quote Fishwrap:

In the deposition, Weakland said he did treat priests with more leniency because they were men of the cloth.

“I admit that in many ways we treated, or I treated, the priest a little bit differently than I would have treated an ordinary school teacher,” Weakland said. “There was a certain obligation that I had toward the priests that went beyond what I might have toward anyone else.”

Get that?  Today, that sounds pretty bad.  When bishops and priests talk about how they used to handle the sexual abuse problems way back when, we all cringe now and even get angry at the “cover up”, the “clericalism”, the “lack of accountability”.  We get mad.

At the end of the piece…

Nine years after Weakland’s resignation, the Milwaukee archdiocese became the eighth in the nation to file for bankruptcy. It spent more than $29 million over 20 years to cover costs associated with the sex abuse scandal. Weakland was archbishop during the majority of the sex abuse cases.

Doesn’t sound very good, does it?

Here’s my problem.

As you read on in Fishwrap‘s piece about Weakland, you never get protestations of outrage, anger, disappointment about how this BISHOP didn’t do enough to protect children and punish priest abusers, etc. etc.

What has Fishwrap written about bishops who have had far less naïveté than Weakland?

Fishwrap had a Schadenfreude-induced, spittle-flecked nutty over Bp. Finn’s mistake in Kansas City.  Even poor Orestes wasn’t pursued by the Furies as relentlessly as NSR went after Finn.

I looked around on the site of the Fishwrap for editorials denouncing Archbishop Weakland’s handling of the crisis in his archdiocese.  I searched for articles along the lines of those they fired off about Bp. Finn in Kansas City.

Maybe I am missing something.  Perhaps you readers can find them?