MILWAUKEE (WI)
New York Daily News
[timeline]
[the documents – Jeff Anderson & Associates]
[the documents – Milwaukee archdiocese]
The Vatican took a month to give then-Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan the go-ahead in 2007 to move $57 million into a trust in anticipation of an avalanche of sexual abuse lawsuits against the Milwaukee Archdiocese. But it took six years for Dolan to get the Vatican to defrock an out-of-control priest who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a teen boy.
BY STEPHEN REX BROWN / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
TUESDAY, JULY 2, 2013
When then-Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan sounded the alarm on abusive priests, the Roman Catholic Church dragged its feet — but when Dolan needed to protect tens of millions of dollars, the church acted without hesitation, bombshell documents revealed Monday.
The Vatican took only a month to give Dolan the go-ahead in 2007 to move $57 million into a trust in anticipation of an avalanche of sexual abuse lawsuits against the Milwaukee Archdiocese, which Dolan ran from 2002 to 2009.
But it took six years for Dolan to get the Vatican to defrock an out-of-control priest who had been convicted of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old boy.
The stunning revelations were contained in 6,000 pages of documents released Monday by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee as part of its bankruptcy proceeding.
In 2003, Dolan — now the cardinal in New York and arguably the face of the Catholic Church in America — wrote Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, who would go on to become Pope Benedict XVI, notifying him of the Rev. John O’Brien’s criminal conviction.
“After only a few visits they began to hug each other at the end of their time together,” Dolan wrote of O’Brien and the teen victim. “Shortly thereafter, in the basement of the church building, Father O’Brien and the boy had explicit sexual contact.”
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