rescinded both invitations. In 2009, Weakland announced that he was gay in his memoir A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop. In March 2019, the archdiocese announced that it was removing Weakland's name from buildings in the archdiocese. The Weakland Center, which houses parish offices and outreach initiatives, was renamed on March 22, 2019. In his later years, Weakland was in poor health, being in hospice care in his condo in Milwaukee. He Weakland died on August 22, 2022, at his residence in Greenfield, Wisconsin, following a long illness. A public Mass of Christian Burial was offered by Archbishop Jerome Listecki at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist on August 30, 2022. Weakland's remains were interred at the cemetery of St. Vincent Archabbey on September 1, 2022. Public controversies Sexual abuse scandal In 1984, Weakland responded to teachers in a Catholic school who were reporting sexual abuse by local priests by stating "any libelous material found in your letter will be scrutinized carefully by our lawyers". The Wisconsin Court of Appeals rebuked him for this, calling his remarks "abrupt" and "insensitive". In 1994, Weakland said those reporting sexual abuse were "squealing". He later apologized for the remarks. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, a deposition released in 2009 revealed that Weakland shredded reports about sexual abuse by priests. Weakland admitted allowing priests guilty of child sex abuse to continue in ministry without warning parishioners or alerting the police. He stated in his autobiography that in the early years of the sexual abuse scandal he did not understand that child sexual abuse was a crime. Liturgical agenda In 1965 to 1966, Weakland served as president of the Church Music Association of America. According to an account by Richard Schuler, a split emerged very quickly, with Weakland taking sharp exception to the "reactionary attitudes in liturgical thinking" that he said were present at the Consociato meeting. In interviews with the press, he expressed regret that the meeting failed to include modern music and dancing in its liturgical agenda. His views did not prevail within the CMAA and so his presidency did not last. In 2000, Weakland was a critic of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's document Dominus Iesus'' on religious relativism. One of his last major actions as archbishop was effecting a controversial renovation of the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. Removal of