The Archdiocese of Milwaukee acknowledged Sunday that six priests with alleged or confirmed records of past sexual misconduct with minors continue to serve in active ministry.
Matt Flynn, legal counsel to the archdiocese, also announced that Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland would submit the names and personnel files of those priests to a new task force of community professionals for review.
Flynn's announcement was the first time a number had been placed on the possible cases now pending in the Milwaukee archdiocese.
"The archbishop believes these priests can serve and are serving the public without endangering anyone," Flynn said in a phone interview Sunday night. "A reasonable person could disagree with (Weakland)."
The comments came on Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week, the most sacred period of the year for Christians. This year, the six-week celebration of Lent, which retraces the story of Jesus Christ's crucifixion and resurrection, has been overshadowed by a story of another kind: clergy's sexual abuse of children and minors.
In many churches across the nation, Palm Sunday sermons attempted to talk to Catholics about events that began in Boston, where revelations that the archdiocese there failed to banish priests accused of child molestation have been repeated in parishes across the country.
Meanwhile, Weakland suggested that the sex abuse scandal was an opportunity for the church to discuss accepting married priests.
Saying Roman Catholics "must face the pedophilia issue in the church with courage," Weakland said recent abuses by priests could set the stage for "the kind of breakthrough that will force us to move ahead in unexpected ways."
Weakland's statement, sent by e-mail to priests in the archdiocese last week and distributed Sunday at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in downtown Milwaukee, said the option of a married clergy "should be cooly analyzed and studied now."
Also Sunday, the head of the Milwaukee archdiocesan tribunal that deals with such cases here described as "morally disgusting and sinful" the church's failure to stop pedophile priests in Boston.
Father Thomas Brundage, judicial vicar of the Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese, called priest pedophilia "a form of homicide" in that it takes away children's innocence.
"After 1985, all churches in the United States were on notice that they cannot put priests who have had incidents of having sexual abuse in parishes or any setting where they would have access to children," Brundage said. "For the church authorities to have allowed this to happen was sinful, more than negligent, and I believe they should be held accountable."
The national scandal erupted when Boston priest John Geoghan, who was defrocked in 1998, was accused of molesting 130 people over a 30-year period. He was sentenced last month to 10 years in prison, and the archdiocese agreed to pay up to $30 million to settle claims against him.
In Milwaukee, Weakland announced plans this month to form a task force to review the church's handling of sexual abuse issues. It will examine policies and procedures for treating, assigning and monitoring priests who are returned to the ministry after being accused of abuse.
Weakland will appoint the five-member task force, which Flynn said Sunday would be led by a non-Catholic, to help assure the faithful that church officials are acting accountably, he said in an article earlier this month in the Catholic Herald, the archdiocesan newspaper.
The task force will review records to make sure that archdiocesan officials had made the right decisions in handling allegations of sexual abuse. When Weakland announced the task force, he did not indicate that any priests with records of sexual abuse might still be serving in pastoral ministries.
And the archdiocese gave assurances recently that no priest who poses a danger to minors is serving in a parish. Those statements were based on its policy of not giving assignments to priests who have been formally diagnosed with sexual disorders that cause them to be attracted to children or youth.
Archdiocesan spokesman Jerry Topczewski assured the public earlier this month that in the Milwaukee archdiocese "we have said that we have not placed priests in a position where they have posed any risks to children or teens, nor are there any known pedophiles in any active ministry at all."
Flynn could not confirm Sunday whether any of the six priests accused of sexual misconduct were serving in parishes, saying only that they were in ministries where they had contact with the public.
Flynn said alleged victims had made allegations against six priests who were still in active ministry. In some cases, the allegations and the archdiocese's decision to let the priest continue in ministry were made more than 10 years ago, Flynn said.
He said he was familiar with four of the cases and had read portions of the files of two other cases. One of the priests had a single allegation made against him, Flynn said.
The archdiocesan attorney stressed that the task force would examine cases in which any prior allegations had been made against a priest now serving in active ministry. The exception, he said, would be if the allegation were made by an anonymous source and no alleged victim could be located.
Calling Weakland's appointment of an outside task force "extraordinary," Flynn said that it was unusual to delegate priest assignments to an outside body, and that his action would attract attention from other bishops around the country.
The members of the task force are to be announced today.
"When the names are announced, I think people will say it's amazing that an archbishop would in effect defer to the judgment or recommendation of an outside panel on assignment issues," Flynn said. "That's very unusual in the Catholic Church."
Milwaukee's archbishop also has renewed the debate of whether the Catholic Church should allow married clergy.
"Perhaps this will be the moment when the larger issues of priestly ministry in the church will be faced," Weakland wrote in his weekly e-mail to priests in the Milwaukee archdiocese.
"We will be better and stronger if we struggle realistically - but with faith - to confront the difficult issue of pedophilia and what it might be saying to us about priestly ministry in the church in general," wrote Weakland, who was reprimanded by Rome for raising the issue of married clergy more than a decade ago.
In 1991, he issued a cautiously worded first draft of a statement saying he would be willing to ask the pope to ordain married men if they were the only candidates to serve viable parishes.
During a May 1998 meeting with Pope John Paul II, Weakland again introduced the subject. He presented the pope with a 22-chapter report discussing problems in the church and proposals to cope with a shortage of priests.
Weakland said in last week's e-mail that he "developed a more acceptable stance" concerning the possibility of married clergy after making "contacts with Orthodox churches," which allow priests to marry before being ordained.
When the pope "granted permission for married Episcopalian clergy to function in the Catholic Church, he opened the door to this experience among our people," Weakland wrote.
In Weakland's e-mail, he said: "The bombardment in the public forum about pedophilia in the church has provided enough penance for everyone this year. I would suggest that we all relax a bit on our Lenten resolutions."
The bishop of the La Crosse Diocese said Sunday that he was surprised by Weakland's comments about married clergy.
"I'm certainly respectful of the archbishop, but I don't agree with that idea," Bishop Raymond Burke said.
Burke, who has been bishop in La Crosse since 1995, said allowing priests to marry was not the answer to solving the problem of pedophilia in the priesthood.
"I certainly agree we have to face these issues head on," Burke said. But "the problem of pedophilia is not tied to celibacy. It's a disorder in the person."
Copies of Weakland's e-mail were made available to parishioners attending Palm Sunday services at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. Father Carl A. Last, pastor of the church, said in a note attached to the e-mail that he reprinted the letter with Weakland's permission because the subject has received so much media attention.
Weakland regularly sends priests e-mails discussing church issues, Last said.
In a phone interview Sunday, Last declined to comment on why he decided to distribute the letter.
Without specifically referring to pedophilia, Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba told parishioners observing Palm Sunday at St. John's in Milwaukee that "nothing can hurt or kill or destroy our faith."
Catholics must confront truth wherever they find it, he said. The palms they had received at worship were a sign of victory, Sklba said.
A national advocate for survivors of abuse by priests said Sunday that the Milwaukee archdiocese was releasing information about six priests now because the church was bearing the brunt of criticism stemming from the Boston scandal.
"If they know who these men are, they should remove them from the priesthood," said Peter Isely, a Milwaukee man who was abused as a child by a priest.
"That gives the sense that the church cares more about priests than it does about the priesthood and restoring some integrity and honor to that title," Isely said. "All this is going to do is make people suspicious - 'Well, does my priest have this background, and do I want to risk my child?' "
Elsewhere across the nation Sunday, priests addressed the sexual abuse scandal.
In Denver, priests read aloud messages of apology and compassion from their archbishop. Parishioners in other cities, such as Houston and Palm Beach, Fla., were met by leaflets discussing the allegations.
Some of the strongest words locally came in a Palm Sunday sermon at SS Peter and Paul parish on Milwaukee's east side.
Brundage, pastor of that parish, said there had been 35 cases since 1926 in which the archdiocesan tribunal he heads dealt with priests accused of pedophilia. He pointed out that there were thousands of priests in the archdiocese during that time.
"For the young person, these events can be life-shattering and can leave lifelong scars," Brundage said in a homily at the 11 a.m. Mass. "This abuse of power seems to me to be a form of homicide, a child's innocence is taken from him or her."
Brundage described his work as judge in the archdiocesan tribunal - a job he's held for about seven years - that handles cases of priest misconduct, and has the power, he said, "to strip a man of his priesthood."
"As part of being the judge in these matters, I have had to interview both the priest perpetrators as well as many cooperative and brave victims," he said.
"These trials were probably the most difficult professional tasks I had ever undertaken and were probably the lowest moments of my life. As I listened to their stories, I admit I have never been so embarrassed to be a priest."
Brundage also said all but one or two of the 35 cases since 1926 were cases of sexual attraction to teenagers, rather than young children - though he added, "both are wrong, and children must be protected from individuals with either disease."
Tom Tolan of the Journal Sentinel staff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.