Abuse victims and church members hoped that Cardinal Timothy Dolan would be the new face of a more compassionate church but the New York Times reports that he was hiding assets from victims of clergy sexual abuse:
Files released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday reveal that in 2007, Cardinal Timothy F. Dolan, then the archbishop there, requested permission from the Vatican to move nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the assets from victims of clergy sexual abuse who were demanding compensation.
Cardinal Dolan, now the archbishop of New York, has emphatically denied seeking to shield church funds as the archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009. He reiterated in a statement Monday that these were “old and discredited attacks.”
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But the documents lift the curtain on his role as a workaday church functionary concerned with safeguarding assets, convincing abusive priests to leave voluntarily in exchange for continued stipends and benefits, and complying with Rome’s sluggish canonical procedures for dismissing uncooperative priests whom he had long concluded were remorseless and a serious risk to children. In one case, it took the Vatican five years to remove a convicted sex offender from the priesthood.
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On the same topic. Grave inconsistencies in Dolan’s version of events.
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/grave-inconsistencies
Sounds like standard management. At least he didn’t put it in an offshore account, but then the church had no need to avoid taxes. Maybe he was inspired by the Biblical parable of the servant who buried his talent in the ground. Or perhaps it was just the usual institutional instinct for self preservation.
You got that right, John!
Much as I would love to see Mr Dolan indicted, I sincerely doubt that will happen (besides, he’s undoubtedly got his bags packed for Rome, if he needs to skip town/country, in a flash— )
JC Fisher
A case of the dead burying the dead.
Well, at least the money is safe in the cemetery, which seems to have been the priority.
June Butler