UNITED STATES
Boys Don’t Tell
The Catholics are in the news again about their handling of child sex abuse, via the actions of Archbishop Dolan. Evidently when he was Bishop of the Milwaukee Diocese, in 2003 he was a key player when a decision was made to pay sexually abusive priests $20,000 to leave the priesthood. Yet at the time when the Bishop was asked if they were paying priests off, he responded by saying that was “false, preposterous and unjust.”
Now that the minutes of that meeting have become public in the bankruptcy of the Milwaukee Diocese, we are being told that the church did this to “help these former priests transition to lay life without completely losing access to things like health care.” (Nobody seemed to care what all the victims had lost access to, like trust, faith, self-respect, and their soul among other things.) The church also admits the payments were intended to move “unassignable priests” out of the priesthood more quickly than going through due process. Some say this was a bonus to child molesters. I don’t see it that way. It was a payoff, and they obviously recognized there was a serious problem.
Here in Oregon, it came out a couple of years ago that the Portland Public Schools were doing the same thing with teachers that had complaints of sexual abuse against them. The district paid their insurance for a year and gave them letters of recommendation and in some cases monetary awards as long as they agreed to leave the area. I’m sure these administrators were saying the same thing the church was; leave my employ so that you are no longer a potential liability to me.
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