A week before Cardinal Timothy Dolan was to fly to Rome for the papal conclave lawyers grilled him for hours behind closed doors about child sex-abuse by priests in his former diocese of Milwaukee. The lawyers represent hundreds of victims who were sexually abused in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee while cardinal Dolan was the archbishop.
“The lawyers want to know whether Cardinal Dolan acted to stop lawsuits being filed in time against accused priests and the archdiocese, and whether he shielded church assets to prevent them being used to compensate alleged abuse victims.”
Dolan is not the only U.S. Roman Catholic cardinal giving depositions to lawyers in sexual abuse cases recently. The other is Cardinal Roger Mahony, the former archbishop of Los Angeles who has been under pressure since a court ordered the “release of 12,000 pages of church files revealing his role in shielding accused priests from the law.”
Cardinal Dolan, a potential papal candidate, has been dogged by legal cases in Milwaukee.
The Roman Catholic priestly sexual abuse of children seems to have been anywhere that the Catholic Church had at least tacit immunity from exposure. The impunity of the priests and their protection by their superiors reveals the lack of accountability within the system, and the systemic nature of the problem. The unholy mess reveals the rotten core of the papal system itself.
“And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” Revelation 18:4