MILWAUKEE (CWNews.com) - A Milwaukee auxiliary bishop this week entered the fray over the rejection of a Catholic priest as chaplain for the US House of Representatives for a Presbyterian minister.

    Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba of Milwaukee said he was asked by Archbishop Rembert Weakland to examine the case of Father Timothy O'Brien, a Marquette University political science professor. Marquette is located in the Milwaukee archdiocese. "The appearance that religious discrimination might be involved is abhorrent," said Bishop Sklba.

    Liberal lobbyists and Democrat congressmen have accused the House's Republican leadership of anti-Catholic bigotry in rejecting Father O'Brien. GOP leaders replied that Democrats are politicizing the issue, trying to score election-year victories by bringing the bigotry charges.

    Congressional sources have said Father O'Brien was mainly passed over because he spent 18 years as an academic and not in pastoral ministry, and that his past political activities raised fears he would use his position to lobby Congress, rather than minister to congressmen.

    Jerry Topczewski, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, has said that the two bishops do not necessarily believe bigotry was at work in passing over Father O'Brien, but "even the perception that there may have been bias makes Catholics in Milwaukee uneasy."