UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics
Mark Silk|Jun 4, 2012
Buttonholed by reporters after saying Mass at St. Patrick’s yesterday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan denounced as “groundless and scurrilous” Laurie Goodstein’s report in last week’s New York Times that he had authorized $20,000 payments to induce pedophile priests to voluntarily accept laicization when he was archbishop of Milwaukee. It’s anyone’s guess how he thinks that’s supposed to square with the Milwaukee archdiocese spokeman’s statement that such payments were indeed authorized–a statement Dolan “supports,” according to his own spokesman.
Over at dotCommonweal, a few commenters have sought to support the Dolan denial by scrutinizing accounts of the single case in point mentioned by Goodstein, that of the notorious abuser Franklyn Becker. Bear in mind that the issue at hand is the veracity of Dolan’s September 8, 2006 statement in reponse to a query from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Tom Heinen:
For anyone to assert that this money was a “payoff” or occurred in exchange for Becker agreeing to leave the priesthood is completely false, preposterous and unjust.
What this was, instead, was an act of charity, in line with Catholic social teaching, that allowed a person to obtain health insurance coverage he simply could not afford on his own. If people want to criticize me for that charity, so be it.
Based on interviews and an examination of documents in the hands of Bishop-Accountability.org, some not made public until now, I can report the following.
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