http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/05\/17\/nyregion\/17dolan.html?ref=todayspaper<\/a><\/p>\r\nInitially I\u00a0thought the story, headlined “Complex Struggle: A Prelate’s Record in the Abuse Crisis,”\u00a0would be an indictment of Archbishop Dolan, who has already become a beloved figure in the Big Apple\u00a0because of his Irish sense of humor and down-to-earth personality.<\/p>\r\n
But I think The Times actually did a very nuanced story about Dolan’s successes, and self-admitted failures, trying to deal with\u00a0this century’s shame of the Catholic Church.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
The beginning of the story starts out in 2002, when Dolan met, and wept with, abuse victims in Milwaukee, where he had\u00a0replaced a prelate who had himself been caught up\u00a0in the sex-abuse scandal. Several months later Dolan wrote a victim and warned him, “Do not put your trust in me…I am imperfect, sinful, struggling, clumsy.”<\/p>\r\n
As it turns out, Dolan disappointed abuse victims in Milwaukee when they learned that, just days before he wrote that letter, he had\u00a0ordered\u00a0lawyers to move to have five lawsuits against the church dismissed. Later on, Dolan’s critics would\u00a0complain that he refused to\u00a0make\u00a0 public all the names of pedophile priests,\u00a0and\u00a0that he didn’t offer enough help for victims.<\/p>\r\n
But the story points out that Dolan seemed to\u00a0sincerely be trying to\u00a0juggle the requests of\u00a0 victims with the sensitivities church hierarchy, which\u00a0wanted things to remain hush-hush,\u00a0 and\u00a0parisonioneers who didn’t want their weekly donations being used to pay out settlements to victims.<\/p>\r\n
“It was a diplomatic gantlet that\u00a0many recent bishops have had to walk, and Archbishop Dolan trod\u00a0it with particular care,”\u00a0 The Times wrote.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n
I don’t see\u00a0anyone should be surprised that Dolan “was a tough defender of the church’s interests, clergy and bank balances” in Milwaukee, or that “he worked in an unusually public and personal way to limit lawsuits and settlements,” according to The Times.<\/p>\r\n
Dolan tried to work with\u00a0SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests,” but ultimately he would not deal with the group.\u00a0No wonder. At one point, a SNAP member spat on Archbishop Dolan.<\/p>\r\n
During this period, and in St. Louis where Dolan served before Milwaukee , most\u00a0accused priests that Dolan confronted admitted their guilt. But in one case the priest, the Rev. Alexander Anderson,\u00a0steadfastly maintained his innocence. After an\u00a0his own investigation\u00a0and\u00a0with input from a special panel, Dolan concluded that Father Anderson was innocent.<\/p>\r\n
Then Rev. Anderson, believing the accusations that he had abused a youth defamed him, filed suit against his accuser — a rather rare occurrence\u00a0 in the midst of the pedophile-priest scandal .\u00a0\u00a0The church footed the bill for Rev. Anderson’s\u00a0legal bills.<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0To appease those who didn’t want their donations being used to pay abuse victims, Archbishop Dolan established a $4 million fund, money raised by selling church properties,\u00a0to pay settlements to\u00a0victims.<\/p>\r\n
The Times’ story also\u00a0talks about the Wisconsin laws that had an impact on the pedophile-priest cases in the Badger State.<\/p>\r\n
For example, in\u00a02008\u00a0Wisconsin was on the verge\u00a0of creating new woes for the church, when the state Legislature was considering a bill that set\u00a0a three-year grace period when\u00a0people could sue the church for abuse no matter how long ago that molestation had taken place. But that bill, which Archbishop Dolan testified against, didn’t pass.<\/p>\r\n
And\u00a0the Wisconsin\u00a0Supreme Court, which\u00a0at one time had limited lawsuits that could be filed\u00a0against the church, in 2007 ruled that the Milwaukee\u00a0\u00a0archdiocese\u00a0could be sued for fraud by victims who claimed that pedophile priests had been transferred to their church without any warning being given to parishioners. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n
\u00a0There are 12 such fraud suits now pending against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, according to The Times.<\/p>\r\n
My takeaway on Archbishop Dolan is that he tried to do his best in a difficult situation, appeasing\u00a0angry abuse victims, \u00a0navigating his\u00a0way through church politics and making sure that parishioner’s donations were not being used to pay settlements.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Rev.\u00a0Timothy\u00a0Dolan\u00a0has been archbishop of\u00a0 Milwaukee and currently, of New York City. Roman Caltholic priests have molested children in both those venues. And Monday The New York Times did a Page One analysis of how Dolan handled the pedophile-priest abuse scandal, particularly during his tenure\u00a0in Wisconsin. http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/05\/17\/nyregion\/17dolan.html?ref=todayspaper Initially I\u00a0thought the story, headlined “Complex Struggle: A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[451,450,452],"class_list":["post-398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-archbishop-timothy-dolan","tag-milwaukee-archdiocese-and-suits","tag-wisconsin-priest-sex-abuse"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398\/revisions\/416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wis-injury.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}