UNITED STATES
The Center for Constitutional Rights
Dolan’s Track Record Exemplifies Cover-up Practices Within Catholic Church Hierarchy
press@ccrjustice.org
February 17, 2012, New York – The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) strongly condemn Pope Benedict’s appointment of Archbishop Timothy Dolan to Cardinal of the Archdiocese of New York. Dolan’s mishandling of child sexual abuse cases is well-documented, from failing to report direct admissions by offending priests to actively lobbying against reforming statutes of limitations on child sexual abuse cases in Wisconsin. The archbishop’s track record is consistent with the Catholic Church’s record of covering up child sex abuse allegations.
On September 13, 2011, CCR and SNAP filed a complaint before the International Criminal Court charging that Vatican officials are responsible for policies and practices of cover-up that have enabled widespread and systemic rape and sexual violence against children and vulnerable adults. Together with the complaint, they submitted more than 20,000 pages of supporting materials consisting of findings and reports of commissions of inquiry and grand juries, testimonies, and other documentary evidence of sex crimes by Catholic clergy and of the policies and practices involved in the cover-ups.
Among the documents submitted in support of the complaint are letters between Dolan and then-Cardinal Ratzinger concerning Father Franklyn Becker. Becker was diagnosed as a pedophile as early as 1983 when serving in Milwaukee and, though the archdiocese of Milwaukee knew he continued to re-offend, Becker was nonetheless allowed to continue to work in several parishes. It was only when Becker was arrested in California in 2003 for the sexual assault of a child that Dolan wrote to Ratzinger requesting that Becker be defrocked. Ratzinger’s office replied that Dolan should inquire whether Becker would voluntarily request his own defrocking rather than be laicized involuntarily by the Vatican.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.