Catholics Sought To Protect Funds, Avoid Compensations

[stromboli]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/us/do ... d=all&_r=0

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."

However, the files contain a 2007 letter to the Vatican in which he explains that by transferring the assets, "I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability." The Vatican approved the request in five weeks, the files show.

The release of more than 6,000 pages of documents on Monday was hailed by victims and their advocates as a vindication and a historic step toward transparency and accountability. They were well aware that the archives would bring unusually intense scrutiny to the country's most high-profile prelate, Cardinal Dolan, who as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the archbishop of New York has sought to help the church turn the corner on the era of scandal.

Cardinal Dolan has been regarded by many Catholics as part of the solution. In public appearances, he has expressed personal outrage at the harm done to children, apologized profusely and pledged to help the church and the victims heal.

But the documents lift the curtain on his role as a workaday church functionary concerned with safeguarding assets, persuading abusive priests to leave voluntarily in exchange for continued stipends and benefits, and complying with Rome's sluggish canonical procedures for dismissing uncooperative priests who he had long concluded were remorseless and a serious risk to children. In one case, the Vatican took five years to remove a convicted sex offender from the priesthood.

"As victims organize and become more public, the potential for true scandal is very real," he wrote in such a request in 2003 to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the head of the Vatican office charged with handling abuse cases until he became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.

Victims on Monday called for a federal investigation into the actions of Cardinal Dolan and his predecessors, but the cardinal sought to deflect criticism by saying in a statement Monday that he welcomed the release of the documents.

The current archbishop of Milwaukee, Jerome E. Listecki, had announced his decision to release the documents in April, one day before a judicial hearing. Lawyers for abuse victims had asked a judge to compel their release.

Archbishop Listecki released a letter last week warning Catholics in his archdiocese that the documents could shake their faith, and trying to explain the actions of church leaders while offering apologies to victims.

"Prepare to be shocked," he wrote. "There are some graphic descriptions about the behavior of some of these priest offenders."

The files include documents from the personnel files of 42 clergy offenders with "substantiated" allegations, going back 80 years. (The names and identifying features of victims were redacted.) Also included are the legal depositions of Cardinal Dolan and another former Milwaukee archbishop, Rembert Weakland, and a retired auxiliary bishop, Richard J. Sklba.

Milwaukee harbored some of the nation's most notorious priest pedophiles, including the Rev. Lawrence Murphy, whom a church therapist assessed as having molested as many as 200 boys during his two and a half decades teaching and leading St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis, Wis., and Sigfried Widera, who faced 42 counts of child abuse in Wisconsin and California. Father Murphy died in 1998, and Father Widera committed suicide in Mexico in 2003.

In his letter, Archbishop Listecki said the documents showed that 22 priests were "reassigned to parish work after concerns about their behavior were known to the archdiocese," and that 8 of those "reoffended after being reassigned."

At least its in the New York Times, not some obscure news source. Read the whole article. It is even scarier than what is quoted.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

To bad they can't peel back the curtain on all these motherfucks from catholics to mormens to baptists to...the whole lot.

[SGOS]

It's an attempt to defraud creditors.  It's against the law.  There is no provision that says it's OK if it provides for someone's personal opinion that it's for a greater good.  LOL  It doesn't work that way.

[Solitary]

When I first heard about priests being pedophiles I didn't believe it because even I as an atheist looked up to them as being a symbol of morality from general consensus. I figured that there would be a few that would be, but not to the extent it was. I still don't understand why it's usually boys and not girls molested or raped. Is it because of alter boys and not alter girls?  :-?  Solitary

[stromboli]

Its boys because anal rape is harder to detect than vaginal rape, and the stigma with boys is greater to not tell. The fact that, with most crimes of this sort, many more are committed than victims admit to, means there is a widespread pattern that has gone on for not just decades but likely centuries. I am sure that this is a known commodity amongst the clergy, something accepted as "normal" and not reported over generations.

[Jason78]

That money was only resting in my account.

[youtube:2gfkjtht]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUeYJKoE3yc[/youtube:2gfkjtht]