MILWAUKEE (WI)
SNAP Wisconsin
May 30, 2012
To: Jerome Listecki, Archbishop of Milwaukee
From: Peter Isely, SNAP Midwest Director
Re: Dolan’s laicization payouts to priest sex offenders
Archbishop Listecki,
The biblical account of the events that led to Christ’s execution begin, of course, with the betrayal of Jesus by Judas, one of the twelve disciples, to religious and political authorities. That betrayal was marked and sealed by a disbursement of money: 30 pieces of silver. So it is with considerable dismay to learn that the apostolic leaders of the Milwaukee church, who gather the faithful around the name and memory of Christ, have been apparently engaged in paying off those who betrayed the children of our archdiocese.
Minutes from a March 2003 Archdiocese Finance Council meeting, which have surfaced in Milwaukee Federal Bankruptcy Court, appear to confirm what we survivors and our families have long suspected, that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, under the leadership of Archbishop Dolan and Bishop Sklba, were paying off priests who committed criminal acts of rape, sexual assault and abuse against youngsters. According to the minutes of this meeting, a plan was discussed by Dolan and Sklba and others whereby known priest child molesters would be paid $20,000 each to quietly leave the priesthood through the Vatican’s administrative process of laicization, $10,000 at the beginning of the process and $10,000 upon completing it.
Evidence shows the plan was implemented. In 2006, pedophile cleric Franklyn Becker made admissions to the Milwaukee media and confirmed by the Archdiocese that he had been cut a $10,000 check to sign his laicization papers. This money was a “signing bonus” with no restrictions applied. Dolan claimed at the time that this was an isolated incident of “charity”. Yet, in July of 2011, further evidence of a payout scheme was revealed when you acknowledged that the archdiocese would be making a “final” payment of $90,000 to nine priests undergoing laicization. A few months later you put the archdiocese into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
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