CBSEveningNews
Published on Jul 1, 2013
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is involved in 45 cases involving sexual abuse by priests. An attorney for abuse victims in the case claims then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan shuffled funds to protect them from abuse claims. Dean Reynolds reports.
Then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan tried to protect money from claims, records show
Associated Press
Archbishop Timothy Dolan, seen in this 2009 file photo, listens as the Apostolic letter is read by the Vatican's ambassador to the United States during his installation Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.
Milwaukee Archdiocese releases thousands of pages from priest sex abuse files
By of the Journal SentinelJuly 2, 2013
Archdiocese Bankruptcy
The Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee, which faces more than a dozen civil fraud lawsuits over its handling of clergy sex abuse cases, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January. As the case proceeds, we'll have updates, analysis, documents and more.
In the decades before Dolan — now cardinal of New York — arrived in 2002, church leaders, including now-retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland, routinely moved pedophile priests from one parish or school to the next, shielding them from criminal charges, the records show.
And when they did try to dismiss sex abusers from the priesthood, Dolan and Weakland were met by a Vatican bureaucracy that moved at a glacial pace, causing the process to slog on sometimes for years.
One case, involving the now-defrocked Father John O'Brien, dragged on for five years, even though O'Brien was convicted of fourth-degree sexual assault of a teenage boy and had sought his own dismissal. At one point a Vatican official wrote to Dolan saying he could not turn the case over to Pope Benedict XVI for a final decision 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 Monday as part of the archdiocese's bankruptcy proceedings.
They offer, at times in disturbing detail, an unprecedented look at how the Catholic Church's global sex abuse crisis played out in the parishes, schools and other ministries in southeastern Wisconsin. Some of the information has previously been reported, including revelations that Milwaukee bishops, like their colleagues around the country, routinely moved priests without divulging that they were a danger to children.
But the vast majority of the 6,000 pages of documents are being seen for the first time. They include parts of priests' personnel files; correspondence between the Milwaukee archdiocese and the Vatican; and depositions of Dolan, Weakland and other church officials, and one notorious sex offender, since defrocked.
"The revelations are shameful and shocking," said Minnesota attorney Jeffrey Anderson, who represents most of the 575 men and women who filed claims in the bankruptcy alleging they were sexually abused by priests, nuns, teachers and others associated with the Milwaukee archdiocese.
Anderson accused local bishops, including Dolan, of worrying more about the church's reputation than the care of victims, and of perpetuating a culture of secrecy that has been seen in dioceses around the country for decades.
They "deny, minimize, blame," Anderson said.
Dolan issued a statement saying he welcomed the release of his deposition. He derided allegations that he shifted money into the cemetery trust to shield it in case of a bankruptcy filing and paid abusive priests to quietly go away as "old and discredited attacks."
According to the documents, Dolan paid $20,000 to abusive priests who agreed not to fight their dismissal from the priesthood. But records show the practice dated to at least 1995, seven years before he arrived in Milwaukee.
Critics have characterized the payments as payoffs or bonuses to sex abusers. But Dolan said in his statement Monday that canon law requires dioceses to provide "basic support like health care and room and board" for priests until they have moved on.
"Responding to victim-survivors, taking action against priest-abusers, and working to implement policies to protect children, were some of the most difficult, challenging, and moving events of the 6½ years that I served as Archbishop of Milwaukee," Dolan said in the statement.
Officials with the Milwaukee archdiocese did not respond to email and telephone requests for comment. But Archbishop Jerome Listecki issued a letter to Catholics last week, saying he hoped the documents would "aid abuse survivors, families, and others in understanding the past, reviewing the present and allowing the Church in southeastern Wisconsin to continue moving forward."
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Records: Archbishop paid problem priests to leave
By M.L. JOHNSON, Associated Press
Updated 4:16 am, Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Attorney Jeff Anderson makes available in St. Paul, Minn., on Monday, July 1, 2013, close to 6,000 pages of documents related to child sex abuse by priests in Wisconsin. The documents were made public for the first time as part of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee's bankruptcy proceedings. MANDATORY CREDIT; ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS OUT; MAGS OUT; TWIN CITIES TV OUT Photo: The Star Tribune, Richard Sennott
The archdiocese provided the priest with counseling and alcohol abuse treatment, limited his job assignments, eventually ordering him to stop dressing as a priest and barring him from seminary buildings. It only received more reports of abuse.
In 2003, nearly 40 years after some of the earliest reported abuse took place, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who was then archbishop of Milwaukee, sought permission to have the priest, Daniel Budzynski, officially defrocked. Despite the egregiousness of the priest's crimes, the Vatican office in charge of sex abuse cases, then led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, took more than a year to formally dismiss him.
The correspondence was made public Monday along with thousands of pages of other documents detailing sex abuse by dozens of priests in the archdiocese covering southeastern Wisconsin. The documents were released as part of a deal reached in federal bankruptcy court between the archdiocese and victims suing it for fraud. Victims have accused the archdiocese of transferring abusive priests to new churches without warning parishioners and covering up their crimes for decades.
The Budzynski case was among at least a half-dozen Dolan inherited when he took over the archdiocese in 2002 amid the growing clergy abuse scandal. It shows some of the difficulty church leaders had in dealing with serial molesters and a church bureaucracy that in many cases sat on pleas for priests' removal for years.
While other church leaders, including Dolan's predecessor, Archbishop Rembert Weakland, have acknowledged they didn't immediately grasp the extent of the problem, Dolan appears to have quickly determined a crisis was in the making. He moved to push out problem priests, even paying them to leave the priesthood, and later acted to protect church assets by transferring $57 million from a cemetery fund into a trust as the archdiocese moved toward bankruptcy.
Victims have accused Dolan of caring more for the church's well-being than theirs, but his letters, such as the one to Ratzinger seeking to defrock Budzynski, show an understanding of the damage done to children.
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The Guardian Express
Archbishop Timothy Dolan Purposely Shuttled 57 Million Dollars Away From Sex Abuse Victims
He Viewed The Victims As A Major Inconvenience
A portion of the proceeds from this article will be donated to SNAP-the Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests. Please share this article on your social networks.
Breaking news out of Milwaukee today as thousands of pages of documents have been released from the Catholic Archdiocese there. The papers show that Archbishop Timothy Dolan bribed priests to keep them quiet about the child sex abuse scandal, purposely shuttled nearly 57 million dollars out of the Milwaukee Archdiocese before it declared bankruptcy in an attempt to avoid paying settlements to victims, and was far more concerned with accused priests’ well-being and comfort than with the victims themselves. The papers, published on the Archdiocese website as well as on the website of victims’ lawyers, detail depositions, personnel files and court papers in relation to 42 separate child sexual abuse cases.
In preparation of the publication of the documents, Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki of Milwaukee wrote a letter to his congregation, attempting to explain how the church has had to undergo an “arc of understanding” to comprehend the fact that molesting children is a criminal act. In one paragraph, he says “The arc of understanding sexual abuse of a minor progressed from being seen as a moral failing and sin that needed personal resolve and spiritual direction; to a psychological deficiency that required therapy and could be cured; to issues of addiction requiring more extensive therapy and restrictions on ministry; to recognition of the long-term effects of abuse and the need to hold the perpetrator accountable for this criminal activity.”
While most would say that sexual abuse of a minor would automatically be considered a criminal act for which the perpetrator should be held accountable, the church seems to have taken nearly 80 years coming to that conclusion. Owning up to the mistakes, Listecki said, took a long time because the church only realized that having sex with children was wrong when they looked back upon their actions. “Acknowledging our past… includes facing up to mistakes that were made, even if some of those mistakes become apparent only in hindsight” he writes.
Whereas the vast majority of the population does not feel that child molestation is difficult to equate with criminality, Archbishop Listecki seems to feel otherwise. In his letter he reflects back on how some of the documents show that parents didn’t want the police to be involved, and that some of them were more concerned for “Father” than for their own children. He goes on to say “I do not offer this as an excuse, but rather, as examples of the complexity of the topic and the context in which decisions were made.”
Contrary to what Archbishop Listecki states, most would say that handling child molestation is not complex. It’s actually very simple. The majority of first responders would probably pick up the phone and dial 911. But the responders were “ill-equipped” and “didn’t understand” he says. He tells his congregation to “prepare to be shocked” about the documents that were to be published.
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