UNITED STATES
The Pilot
By Mark Pattison
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who was appointed Jan. 6 to the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI, has used his pulpit, be it in New York or Milwaukee, to promote and defend the Catholic faith.
Ordained to the priesthood in 1976, Cardinal-designate Dolan was secretary to the apostolic nunciature in Washington for five years before serving as rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome. In 2001, then-Msgr. Dolan was ordained to the episcopate when he was appointed auxiliary bishop in his native St. Louis. One year and five days later, he was appointed archbishop of Milwaukee. …
As a panelist for a 2004 EWTN-sponsored “town hall” meeting, Cardinal-designate Dolan said the clergy sex abuse crisis was “a societal problem, not a Catholic problem.” At the time, he was chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry.
The Milwaukee Archdiocese in 2006 reached an out-of-court, $16.9 million settlement with victims of clerical sexual abuse. Then-Archbishop Dolan said the payout would mean “sacrifices in operations and ministries” but going to trial could have been worse in terms of archdiocesan financial liability, “to say nothing about the bad PR.” The archdiocese in 2011 filed for bankruptcy protection due to unresolved abuse claims, the largest U.S. diocese to have done so.
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