Archdiocesan Newspaper Repeats Cardinal Dolan’s Lie about Payoffs to Predator Priests

By John Pilmaie
SNAP Wisconsin
June 7, 2012

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The latest edition of the Milwaukee archdiocesan newspaper the Catholic Herald repeats Cardinal Dolan’s lie about payoffs made to pedophile priests. The continued ongoing deception by church officials is sad, inexcusable, and insulting to victim/survivors, their families and Catholics of the archdiocese.

Victim/survivors call on Archbishop Listecki to instruct his chief of staff, Jerry Topczewski, to stop mischaracterizing as “charity” what Deacon David Zimprich called a “settlement” and what was clearly a payoff and to stop keeping silent and publically declare how he feels about long secret payments to Milwaukee predator priests.

Topczewski calls the payments to predator priests “charity”, but another top Milwaukee diocesan official, Deacon David Zimprich called it a “settlement”. In a “status report” on pedophile priest Franklyn Becker, Zimprich refers to the $10,000 payment made to him as a “settlement”. Zimprich also refutes Cardinal Dolan’s 2006 assertion that the funds would be used for Becker’s health insurance. Zimprich states “I advised him (Becker) that the archbishop was not going to pay for his health insurance either directly, or by making some kind of financial arrangement”.

If, as Topczewski says there is nothing “sinister” about these payoffs, why did every single archdiocesan staffer and bishops Dolan and Listecki keep this secret for all these years? Topczewski says that “less than a handful” of priests got such payoffs and “a handful” of priests did. This controversy erupted more than a week ago, and still, Catholic officials either don’t know or won’t say how many child molesting clerics secretly got paid to quietly move elsewhere and be among unsuspecting moms, dads, kids, neighbors, co-workers and even relatives, where they might assault again.

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 23 years and have more than 10,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Visit us at SNAPnetwork.org and SNAPwisconsin.com.