MILWAUKEE (WI)
Huffington Post
Michael D’Antonio
Documents released today in Milwaukee show that Catholic church leaders, including then archbishop Timothy Dolan, deliberately transferred $59 million to a trust in order to protect it from the claims of people who had been sexually abused by local priests. In a letter to a Vatican official, Dolan, now cardinal archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York, explains that the move will provide “improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.”
The Dolan letter, sent in 2007, is among 5,000 pages made public as part of a bankruptcy proceeding in which the $59 million trust is a point of contention for hundreds of people who have filed claims of clergy abuse. The files also include correspondence in which Dolan informs the Vatican that proposals to change statutes of limitations on sex abuse claims could adversely affect the Milwaukee archdiocese.
Overall, the picture of Dolan that emerges in the papers is one of an administrator struggling to protect an institution’s assets while defending its reputation. Some documents confirm that payments were made to induce priests who were accused of abuse to leave ministry and give up their faculties. Others show the bishop’s frustration with Vatican officials and their slow-moving response to his requests that men who were credibly accused be dismissed from the priesthood. As years pass and the cases remain unresolved he referenced legislation that would allow for more lawsuits and wrote:
“The more we can demonstrate our seriousness about purifying the priesthood, as the Holy Father has implored us to do, the more we can speak credibly about the adverse effect of such legislation. Our critics challenge us on the fact that known abusers have still not been laicized.”
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