Jerome Listecki and Rembert Weakland

Milwaukee's Archbishop-designate Jerome E. Listecki will be installed this afternoon, becoming the 11th archbishop of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

Video.

The installation of Bishop Jerome E. Listecki as archbishop of Milwaukee began Sunday night with Vespers at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist and continues today with the installation Mass.

Schedule of Events:

1:20 p.m. Procession of civic and ecumenical leaders, followed shortly after by deacons, clergy, bishops, abbots and concelebrants, including former Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, now archbishop of New York.

2 p.m. The Knights of Columbus honor guard will lead Archbishop-designate Listecki; local bishops; the Apostolic Nuncio or papal ambassador to the United States and others into the Cathedral's nave.

During the Mass: The Nuncio, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, will read Pope Benedict XVI's letter appointing Listecki as Archbishop of Milwaukee. Listecki will be led to the marble Cathedral, or archbishop's seat, where he will receive the bishop's staff known as the crosier.

Live streaming video, from TMJ 4.

Former Archbishop of Milwaukee, Rembert Weakland, will be attending the installation.

That's awkward.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 15, 2009:

In the early years of the sex abuse scandal in Milwaukee, retired Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland says in his soon-to-be released memoir, he did not comprehend the potential harm to victims or understand that what the priests had done constituted a crime.

"We all considered sexual abuse of minors as a moral evil, but had no understanding of its criminal nature," Weakland says in the book, "A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church," due out in June.

Inexcusable.

I wonder if Weakland hopes this public appearance will help him sell a few more copies of his book.

Then there's Weakland's sexual misconduct when he was the Archbishop of Milwaukee and the $450,000 of "ineffective" hush money paid out to his lover or victim or whatever, Paul Marcoux.

Very awkward.

I don't think that it's appropriate for the disgraced Weakland to be at the installation, given the circumstances of his departure and the way he conducted himself in his role as archbishop.

What Weakland did as Milwaukee's archbishop was such an incredible betrayal.

I'm not saying he shouldn't be forgiven, but I don't see how Weakland can walk with Milwaukee's other living former archbishop, Timothy Dolan.

Media coverage of Archbishop-designate Listecki and discussion of his predecessors has been embarrassingly incomplete.

From 620 WTMJ, December 1, 2009:

[M]ake no mistake that Bishop Listecki is excited to add the prefix "Arch" to his job title.

It was an about face by the Catholic Church when Pope John Paul II replaced more liberal Archbishop Rembert Weakland with the friendly, lovable but strict Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

Listecki is said to be cut from the same cloth, a more conservative, a "rules-are-rules" kind of guy.

"More liberal Archbishop Rembert Weakland"?

Is that what you call what Weakland did? Liberal? There's absolutely no mention of Weakland's scandal.

I look forward to Bishop Listecki becoming the leader of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. I'm glad he's cut from the same cloth as Archbishop Dolan.