MILWAUKEEE (WI)
CBS News
MILWAUKEE — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee confirmed Wednesday that it had a policy to pay suspected pedophile priests to leave the ministry.
The acknowledgement was prompted by a document made public by abuse victims’ advocates from the archdiocese’s bankruptcy that references a 2003 proposal to pay $20,000 to “unassignable priests” who accepted a return to the laity. The policy was crafted under then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is now a cardinal and head of the archdiocese in New York.
The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests characterizes the payments as a payoff and bonuses to priests who molested children. The archdiocese disputes that characterization, saying the payments were in part to more quickly move those men out of the priesthood.
The group is calling on the archdiocese to release all records involving the payments and its handling of clergy sex abuse cases.
“You don’t give a bonus to a man who rapes children,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quoted SNAP Midwest director Peter Isely as saying Wednesday outside the federal courthouse in Milwaukee. “If they paid them anything it should have been for therapy and counseling.”
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