Dolan Named Cardinal; Questions Remain about His Role in Milwaukee Bankruptcy, Sex Abuse Crisis

By Peter Isely
SNAP Wisconsin
January 6, 2012

03409bc.netsolhost.com/snapwisconsin/2012/01/06/dolan-named-cardinal-questions-remain-about-his-role-in-milwaukee-bankruptcy-sex-abuse-crisis/

As anticipated Pope Benedict XVI named Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York and former archbishop of Milwaukee, to the position of Cardinal. The move is not a surprise. The archbishop of New York is considered to be the senior Catholic cleric in the United States, and it's most influential. As cardinal, Dolan will join a small group of clerics who are considered the pope's top advisors, and he will also be eligible to cast a ballot in the next papal conclave.

Yet, it's not likely in Rome where Dolan's actual leadership and record will ever be critically examined, but in more humble surroundings, back in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Dolan ran the archdiocese for seven years before going to New York. Dolan's tenure in Milwaukee eventually resulted in the largest bankruptcy filing by a religious organization in history. The bankruptcy, of course, was the result of the actions of bishops who covered up and transferred child sex offending clerics. Which begs the question: What other corporation on the planet files for bankruptcy because of child molesters?

Dolan, who was promoted by the Pope to New York months prior to the bankruptcy filing, may soon have to explain, under oath in Federal court or deposition, the questionable transfer of millions of dollars that were made before he left, where attorneys for victims of clergy sexual assault have questioned the transfer by Dolan of at least $75 million dollars off the diocese's books as well as another $55 million into a newly created "cemetery trust" account.

The elevation of Dolan to such a position of prominence in the church is likely to be a cause of concern for victim/survivors of clergy sexual assault, their families, and fellow Catholics who had hoped for more transparency and accountability from their church leaders. Dolan, in his position as auxiliary bishop of St. Louis, and again as archbishop of Milwaukee, concealed the child sex crimes, and criminal histories, of clergy predators in each of his respective dioceses. (Read SNAP's Clergy Abuse Fact Sheet on Timothy Dolan). Dolan has made the appalling suggestion, in an interview last year, that most sex abuse reports against priest are false, apparently not taking the time to read the million dollar study the US bishops commissioned by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which definitively concluded that the vast majority of the tens of thousands of sexual abuse claims against priests and religious over the past decades are true, and always have been.

And even Dolan's much vaunted folksy charm, admittedly unusual for a prelate, hasn't gotten Catholics back in the pews. While in Milwaukee, under Dolan, there was an astonishing drop in the number of registered Catholics, as well as a stunning plunge in weekly Mass attendance. (Read SNAP's statement on drop in church attendance under Dolan's leadership).

Even if these concerns don't mean much to the predictable promotional machinery of the Vatican, leaving them unaddressed could end up determining a great deal about the future of the Catholic Church in America.