Creditors Want Vatican to Make Funds Available to Milwaukee Church Sex Abuse Victims

WTAQ
November 26, 2013

http://whbl.com/news/articles/2013/nov/27/creditors-want-vatican-to-make-funds-available-to-milwaukee-church-sex-abuse-victims/

The Vatican is being asked to do what a U.S. judge in Milwaukee refuses to do -- make $50 million available to victims of sex abuse by Catholic priests.

Creditors in the Milwaukee Archdiocese bankruptcy case wrote a letter to an office in the Vatican that handles sex abuse cases. It asked top church leaders to revoke an order that allowed former Milwaukee Archbishop Tim Dolan to create a trust fund to maintain cemetery plots for Catholics in the archdiocese.

Federal Judge Rudolph Randa of Milwaukee decided earlier this year to allow the church to protect the cemetery trust funds from the creditors -- almost 600 of whom are victims of sex abuse by priests over a number of decades.

Randa said the trust was protected under the freedom of religion clause in the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.