Deliver Us Not Into This Particular Sex Scandal Case

Among the plaintiffs in every frenzy of high-profile lawsuits, there often seem to be a few charlatans masquerading as victims.

This is happening to the Catholic Church in the current sexual abuse scandal, which has spanned decades and continents.

The latest accuser is Paul Marcoux, 54, who is claiming to have been sexually assaulted by the now retired-in-disgrace archbishop of Milwaukee. Marcoux’s “case” is a blight on the cause of retribution for the innocent and threatens to further muddy the distinction between pedophilia and homosexuality and between abuse and consent.

Amid all the talk of betrayed trust, few critics have made the obvious and all-important distinction between the many cases of child abuse--wherein priests molested underage boys--that have come to light, and this case, in which a 30-year-old graduate student appears to have entered into an adult, consensual homosexual relationship with another grown man.

Need we reiterate that pedophilia and homosexuality are not the same thing? One is a crime and a sickness, the other is not. Homosexuals are not pedophiles. There was no child involved in this case and no crime. No sickness. Just indiscretion.

Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland broke his vow of celibacy and, horror of horrors, turned out to be a homosexual. That’s the extent of the scandal.

To the church, this would have been eminently worth paying $450,000 to cover up. Marcoux received this sum four years ago as a settlement on condition he sign a confidentiality agreement that said he would never speak of the matter again.

Ah, but here Marcoux is speaking freely and loudly on television and to newspaper reporters, breaking his contract without a thought. What good are such contracts if they can be broken with such preening alacrity? Is no one concerned about Marcoux’s character? His greediness? His dishonesty?

The church has grounds to sue him for the cash dispensed, but it is unlikely to do so because that would be perceived as blaming the “victim,” and Rome has enough to worry about right now.

But just who was the victim here?

If you perused the published letter that Weakland wrote to Marcoux back in 1980, when the two were allegedly involved, you’ll find that it sounds a lot like Marcoux, far from being assaulted, had a relationship with Weakland and may even have entered into that relationship with the sole purpose of trying to wring money from church coffers to finance a project he was working on called “Christodrama.”

The problem came, apparently, when Weakland didn’t come up with enough money. Consider this passage from the 11-page handwritten letter, which surfaced this month:

“Paul, I really have given you all that I personally possess. The $14,000 is really my personal limit: it was the money I got from my community when I became a bishop, and I simply do not have private funds. What I can now do personally to help you will be minimal. I know you are pushing me for church money, for some sort of church support for the Midwest Institute of Christodrama. I feel you are putting me in an impossible situation here. I consider all that church money as a sacred trust; it represents the offerings of faithful and I must be accountable to them for how it is all spent.... I simply do not see how I can authorize money for your project. It is not because I don’t love you.”

Whatever Marcoux’s game or Weakland’s weaknesses, this case should not and must not be lumped together with all the others.

First, because Marcoux was an adult at the time of the alleged abuse. He was not a child. There was no pedophilia.

Second, because according to the evidence that has surfaced, there was no sexual assault but merely a consensual relationship that, according to Weakland’s letter, it seems Marcoux pursued. Weakland writes: “You had made me promise earlier not to withdraw [apparently from a planned trip to Nantucket] but how to open up to you? I was frightened to do so.”

Does this sound like abuse? Assault?

Hardly.

And finally, Paul Marcoux violated his confidentiality agreement by speaking publicly about something he agreed, for a handsome sum, never to talk about.

So let’s bang the gavel on this and give our attention to one of the many worthier cases.