MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Catholic Reporter
Marie Rohde | Jul. 2, 2013
MILWAUKEE Cardinal Timothy Dolan says it isn’t so, but advocates for victims of clergy sex abuse say they can now prove what they suspected: Dolan shifted almost $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the money from lawsuits brought by victims.
In 2007, when Dolan was archbishop of Milwaukee, he wrote the Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy seeking permission for a “transfer of assets from the patrimony of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to a separate juridic person, an autonomous pious foundation known as The Archdiocese of Milwaukee Catholic Cemetery Perpetual Care Trust.”
The reason for the transfer: “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability,” Dolan wrote in the letter, one of many documents the Milwaukee archdiocese released Monday.
Dolan’s letter to the Vatican provided the ” ‘smoking gun’ proving he committed federal bankruptcy fraud,” said a statement released Monday by the Milwaukee chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
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