MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Catholic Reporter
May. 31, 2012
By Marie Rohde
MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee archdiocese has acknowledged it paid sexually abusive priests $20,000 to leave the priesthood without taking the laicization fight to the Vatican.
A reference to the payout policy was made in the minutes of a 2003 meeting of the archdiocesan finance council, headed by then Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan, now cardinal archbishop of New York and head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The minutes, which were found in proceedings for the archdiocese’s 2011 bankruptcy filing, were made public Wednesday by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest director, noted the same document reported that the archdiocese had created a pastoral mediation program that would pay victims of sexual abuse by priests up to $30,000 to “make reparations for lost jobs, education, etc. due to the depression and other psychological effects of abuse,” the minutes state.
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