MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin
Statement by Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director (Milwaukee)
CONTACT: 414.429.7259; 414.336.8575
In an email today to Catholic leaders in the Milwaukee Archdiocese “chief of staff” Jerry Topczewski once again admitted that unrestricted payouts were made to priest sex offenders by the Milwaukee Archdiocese as a “signing bonus” to quietly leave the priesthood. The payments have now, according to Topczewski, been stopped.
Is this not a clear admission that they were wrong in the first place?
And isn’t it time for Cardinal Dolan and his successor Jerome Listecki to acknowledge the deep moral wrong of taking Catholic charitable funds and funneling them to priest child molesters?
Topczewski, contradicting himself, also writes that the archdiocese made these payouts because the archdiocese is “canonically responsible for the financial care of a priest, even one who has committed child sexual assault…like it or not.”
Like it or not? Really?
The money to pay off these child molesters came from the hard earned contributions of loyal, faithful Catholics. It’s doubtful they are going to “like” discovering that their contributions were being deposited into the bank accounts of pedophile priests so that the men who raped and molested their children could disappear, as Topczewski writes, “into a new field of work”. Topczewski says these priest offenders used the money to seek secular employment, medical expenses, or training for new jobs. But these funds were given in lump sums with no restrictions. We do know that some of these priests—like Daniel Massie and Jerome Wagner—have secreted themselves into new “secular” jobs working with children and families.
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