NEW YORK
Gothamist
BY EMMA WHITFORD IN NEWS ON OCT 7, 2016
The Archdiocese of New York, one of the country’s largest Roman Catholic diocese, this week announced that it will compensate victims of sexual abuse who have not already settled claims with the church. People abused by New York clergy as minors can apply for monetary compensation through the new Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program.
“I wish I would have done this quite a while ago,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan told the NY Times in an interview. “I just finally thought: ‘Darn it, let’s do it. I’m tired of putting it off.'”
At a Thursday press conference, Cardinal Dolan told reporters that sexual abuse was “one sin, one crime, one scandal that has gravely wounded us in the church.” …
“We’ve seen the pattern time and time again across the country,” David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, told the Times. “Whenever statute of limitations reform is making real progress, bishops take these steps, in essence, to say to lawmakers, ‘Hey, back off, we’re handling this ourselves.'”
Cardinal Dolan also has a history of alleged attempts to protect the church from the costly fallout of sexual abuse cases. Back in 2013, documents released by the Milwaukee archdiocese—where Dolan served as Archbishop —showed that he had moved $57 million in church funds into a private trust, allegedly to protect it from lawsuits by alleged sex abuse victims. The files also revealed the archdiocese had reassigned priests who were accused of sexual molestation. An attorney representing alleged victims said at the time that the transferred funds were meant to “pay off some of the offenders to quietly go away.”
Dolan dismissed those allegations as “groundless and scurrilous.”
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