UNITED STATES
OpEd News
By
Rev. Dan Vojir
Not to be outdone by the Vatican when it comes to financial scandals, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York continues to battle accusations of corruption when he was Archbishop of Milwaukee. Back in 2008, Dolan was accused of shifting over $55 million from the archdiocese’ cemetary assets to reduce settlements involved in clergy sex abuse cases. This transfer of funds has left the archdiocese bankrupt. Now documents from that bankruptcy and its proceedings have surfaced showing that priests accused of abuse were given money if they agreed to go quietly into that good night, leaving the priesthood voluntarily, and leaving the number of defrocked priests at a minimum. It was clearly a “pay away the lay” situation brought to light, but Dolan is calling the stipends “charity.”
A Splendid Job – Of Doing What?
Since the New York Times Article, Dolan has had to delineate what “charity” was as opposed to “payoffs” but when asked if there were similar acts of “charity” given to former priests in the 400-parish area of Manhatten, the Bronx, Staten Island and seven counties, his response was only “No, thank God. Cardinal Egan did a splendid job — that’s all taken care of.” Unfortunately there are serious gaps in this statement and they are:
1. Didn’t the former priests of New York need the same amount of “charity”?
2. What exactly was the “splendid job”?
3. Exactly what was taken care of?
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