Cardinal Timothy Dolan took part in pedophile priest payoff to leave church

Accountability and not hiding the clerical child abusers (of all denominations) from the legal consequences of their crimes is what's required. If I was Dolan (O Dubhshlain, I would have no qualms about asking the offender to call the police right there in my office and give his side of the story to them and let the police sort out the allegations against him or I would do so for him. There would be no go away hush-hush severance pay under me and I would let the entire diocese know what took place. Either the Catholic Church willingly ends the celebacy requirement and allows priests to get married, or priests willingly and knowingly enter the Catholic priesthood with the celebacy requirement in mind and leave it the minute they experience sexual urges for especially the underaged to protect the underaged and/or other clergy and to show respect for a vow they can no longer keep. They should know their pedophile desires endangers the church as a whole reputation-wise and otherwise and priesthood as societies these days will no longer support and attend any church will especially a pedophile problem.

No surprise here. Dolan is as guilty as sin. He should resign at once. Paid off rapists! Unbelievable.

"A charitable gift?" HermitTalker, in what sick, twisted world pedophiles are given charity? Oh, wait... the Vatican world! These psychos should be excommunicated without any delay or financial compensation whatsoever and thrown into jail so that their newfound friends'll teach them the joys of anal rape.

Mr Roberts repeats the exact fake story today. It is on the writers and editor to take the blame for not reporting accurately. The facts are there, Tim Dolan had to point out the money was separation cash, a charitable gift to tide them over so they could get insurance on their own. How dumb can people be not to realise that the Church has its own Court system locally with final decision in Rome for all cases of violation of Church Law. Sadly, there is no place for liars who destroy lives and reputations. For those who violate that, and do not repent and make amends, the penalty is death, eternal death, for murder- check it out in your New Testament. Jesus was very kind to the "sex workers" and other shunned people.

@ JudyJones Unfortunately SNAP has ZERO CREDIBILITY. They have lost their focus. They should be doing nothing but seeking justice for the victims of clerical abuse...instead I read about their regional directors and members criticizing the Church at every turn. Really, married clergy, women priests, etc. - these and other issues have WHAT to do with clerical sex abuse? The Church is an evil institution...tell that to the MILLIONS of people in the USA every day that receive food, shelter and clothing...not to mention the rest of the world. Its sad but SNAP is no longer credible.

@ Narrowbackgal The story does not simply state anything. Like all the Church articles on this website, it spins the facts, draws conclusions from facts not presented and concludes the Church or its surrogates acted with malice. Unfortunately, what this does, is undermine ALL reporting by the liberal press (which in the USA is almost all the press) to the point that you can't believe anything you read. The story here is that Tim Dolan LIED about what he did. What he did, pay the prosecuted pedophile (because some have claimed the priests got away with it...no, they were both prosecuted) some money to speed up the laicization process and get rid of them, saving time and money for the Church. Had they not done this the liberal press would be attacking him and saying he harbored pedophiles and did nothing to get rid of them. I'm glad he did what he did...but I'm saddened he LIED about doing it. That's the story here, but it is missed in the spin and misrepresentation of the facts. SNAP does this all the time, which is sadly why they are no longer credible. For those of us that have left the Church, and won't come back until it's cleaned up...SNAP is not credible anymore.

@RoryTrup, I know a place where these child sex abusing priests can "live and eat" for free - prison. They can even get a job to do while living there.

Can't help but note from the St Louis Review photograph above that Jesus is crucifixing to the left, while Dolan is swinging to the right. Is this a case of graphic symbolism? For 'Jaysus' sake! Taken 'im down. He's been up there for 2,000 years. Even the Romans had the decency to take Him down after 6 hours. And I ain't talkin' about Dolan!

Today Dolan's silence is extremely "LOUD"... Maybe that is because he lied... Once again we are seeing that the high ranking church officials do not have the victims or children's best interests at heart. These men will go to great lengths to protect themselves, their images, and the institution. Judy Jones, SNAP Midwest Associate Director, 636-433-2511 snapjudy@gmail.com (SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world's oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. SNAP was founded in 1988 and has more than 12,000 members. Despite the word "priest" in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers and increasingly, victims who were assaulted in a wide range of institutional settings like summer camps, athletic programs, Boy Scouts, etc).

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised but the actions of the Catholic Church hierarchy never fail to amaze me. How could the Pope elevate Archbishop Dolan to Cardinal knowing that he protected pedophiles and lied about it? The bribes were paid to get the priests out of the way - and where do you think they went? Did they abuse other children? Cardinal Dolan has a lot to answer for besides moving funds into a trust to avoid having to pay victims of abuse. His jolly manner may fool a lot of people but it sure masks a lot, doesn't it?

Again the hypocrisy of these "Defenders of Sexual Deviates" This chubby hypocrite has the balls (or not) to attack gays and attempts to pay for women's healthcare. Then they lie about it DISGRACE!!!!!!!!!!!!

I only got to hear the Cardinal speak for the first time recently on an embedded video on this site. I have to say that from a point of view here in Ireland, this is the kind of senior Cleric Saint Pio alluded to in his 1913 letter to his Religious superior Friar Augustine, describing an apparition in which Jesus made very plain his displeasure about his church on earth. "The ingratitude and the sleep of my ministers increase the agony for me. They badly respond to my love! The greater torment for me is that these people add their contempt to their indifference and disbelief. How many times my wrath was to strike them like lightning, but I was stopped by the angels and the souls who love me" And this was from a Saint of our Church!! This is why I believe that the Holy Spirit is calling time on those who have moved far away from the truths bestowed by Our Lord on his chosen Disciples during his time on earth. This man makes even our Cardinal Brady in Ireland seem "Saintly" in my view :)

Seems the motivation was as much shut them up, move them out with a few dollars, deny doing it and limit the amount of victim compensation. Greed and secrecy prevailed.

For those who state rape of children is just unfortunate..that children get over it.it is way more than that as explained "Sexual abuse: eclipse of the soul The trauma of childhood sexual abuse is almost incomprehensible. Here, Michael Corry and Aine Tubridy explain some of the consequences "I've come to realise that sexual assault is an imposed death experience for the victim. That is, the victim experiences her life as having been taken by someone else. — Evangeline Kane

You can't have it both ways. You want the church to eliminate pedophiles but now you complain that they by avoiding a drawn out laicisation process with a settlement they are also doing wrong. I have represented a priest being laicised it is a long process and expensive. The church is never going to expose information given under the seal of confession. Also, the confession is not limited to statements made "in the box". The seal could apply to a conversation while walking around a lake or on a running track for that matter.