MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel
Four years before the Archdiocese of Milwaukee filed for bankruptcy, then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan — now cardinal of New York — sought Vatican approval to move nearly $57 million in cemetery funds off the archdiocese’s books and into a special trust to help protect them “from any legal claim or liability.”
During his tenure in Milwaukee, Dolan also pleaded repeatedly with the Vatican to “laicize,” or defrock, sexually abusive priests, a process that often took years.
One case dragged on for five years, even though the priest was convicted and had sought his own dismissal. At one point a Vatican official told Dolan he could not turn the case over to Pope Benedict XVI without “an admission of guilt and a sincere expression of remorse.”
How Dolan — now considered one of the world’s most influential Catholic prelates — and his predecessors responded to the sexual abuse crisis in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee is laid out in thousands of pages of documents made public today as part of the archdiocese’s bankruptcy.
Included in the documents were letters showing that the archdiocese paid abusive priests — usually $20,000 — to accept laicization. Critics have characterized this as a payoff or bonus to abusers. However, the church has described it as a charity payment intended to ease the priest’s transition into secular life.
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