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People and Politics by Patrick Roberts

Cardinal Dolan really has some nerve lecturing Obama on morals -- His actions in Milwaukee, paying off pedophile priests, were dreadful

Posted on Friday, June 01, 2012 at 08:06 AM

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Cardinal Dolan and President Obama

Cardinal Timothy Dolan has spent the last few months lecturing President Obama on morals and the need for Catholic organizations to have freedom of choice over birth control provisions in their health insurance.

Ignore for a moment the fact that 95 per cent of Catholic women use birth control anyway and consider instead the story yesterday from Milwaukee.

There, a long-lost diocesan document has turned up making it clear that then Bishop Dolan paid $20,000 on at least two occasions to pedophile priests in order to spur their departure from the priesthood.

These two pedos were not handed over to the police. They received a $20,000 reward and walked away Scot-free as far as Bishop Dolan was concerned.

The only defense of these actions I have seen is that the Catholic Church was not alone in covering up pedophile activity.

That is akin to saying Nazis were not the only ones who hated Jews. Child molesters of any stripe or religion must be stopped – we know that

But Dolan has now gone on to the highest office in the Catholic Church in America. If he were in General Motors after this week’s revelation, he would likely be fired and might well face a court for covering up and abetting the pedophiles.

In the American Catholic Church the matter is hardly noted.

Is that too harsh or am I missing something here?

The ones I feel most sorry for are the ordinary Catholics who desperately want to believe in their church but are finding with every passing week that there is something very rotten at the very top of it everywhere with the exception of a great man like Archbishop Diarmuid Martin in Dublin.

What gives this man Cardinal Dolan, who essentially excused the sexual abuse of minors the right to pontificate about morals?

Frankly, it would be laughable if it were not so sad.

Dolan is a huge star in New York, there are even whispers that he could be an outside candidate for pope in the next conclave.

He has an easy manner and a well-developed sense of public relations.

But let’s not lose sight of the fact that when it came to cover-up of one of the most grievous crimes imaginable, the abuse of innocent children, it appears Dolan was part and parcel of it.

He initially denied strongly he had made the payments saying it was preposterous to suggest he did.

There are many decent clerics in the Catholic Church who will never reach Dolan’s lofty heights but I bet they sleep easier at night.

Cardinal Dolan has lost all moral authority to lecture the rest of us, especially the president, on matters of morals.

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pilib04 | Jun 01, 2012, 03:58 PM EDT

There is a simple answer to all of this: Our Church must actually support child-rapists!

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pilib04 | Jun 01, 2012, 03:54 PM EDT

Just as a side note, do you supporters of Dolan really believe that artificial birth control is a sin???

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pilib04 | Jun 01, 2012, 03:52 PM EDT

I take it that this is a news story because it is so surprising that an American Catholic Cardinal would hide some child-rapist priests? Certainly that may be true if it weren't for the number of powerful American Cardinals already on the lam for their proclivities, for example: Bernard Law and William Levada (he heads the Congregation for the doctrine of the faith, the outfit that has gone after the American Sisters). Dolan, like the other Carinal Monsters, needs to resign!!!

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Woodman | Jun 01, 2012, 03:52 PM EDT

The priests were not convicted of anything And the $20,000 as severance pay, don't seem like much to me but I guess Irish Central reporters are not payed much. But whatever it is, it's more than they are worth.

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Mousemess | Jun 01, 2012, 03:49 PM EDT

Phlutie Phan, Inconveniently for you, Kathleen Sebelius is married to a man named Gary Sebelius. So much much for your convoluted idea of her being a so-called "lesbian." And if Obama surrounds himself with both black and white people, and can handle being a leader who deals with leaders of different nationalities and races, he isn't a racist. And as for him being a "socialist" (a real yawner by now) that is the conservative's favorite smear as they can't find much else to pin on him so that is their main and very stale means of conveying their disdain.

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Bythebay | Jun 01, 2012, 03:33 PM EDT

If Dolan is a huge star in NY then it shows NY's ignorance. Candidate for Pope is pie in the sky, there are other far more likely candidates in rest o'world.

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eiriamach | Jun 01, 2012, 03:30 PM EDT

Another fanatic with no regard for truth! No, Phlutie, the HHS mandate is about insurance coverage for contraception, and it specifically excludes all abortion procedures and abortifacient meds under layers of federal law and executive order, signed and sealed. This falsehood about abortion in the ACA has been copiously dealt with in other comments on IC. I now challenge you to support this oft-repeated lie about abortion connected with the ACA. If you can't (and I know you can't), then now's the time to turn off the blather about it.

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PhlutiePhan | Jun 01, 2012, 03:22 PM EDT

That is the way that you read it! You want to read it in a deliterious manner. So, you would put these men out on the street with no food just as SNAP would wish. The mandate from Obama is not about "contraception". It is about abortion used as a form of contraception. Obama is a socialist just like Gerry Adams and both would destroy organized religion just like their "Uncle Joe". Obama is also a racist who gathers lesbian white Catholic women like Sebelius around him "like a blanket" in memory of his very own mother.

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eiriamach | Jun 01, 2012, 03:20 PM EDT

@Bulldog, I have not seen mention in any news story that the priests Dolan paid $20,000 to had already been prosecuted. The reports tell about Dolan paying "accused" priests, not convicted priests or priests under indictment. They were "unassignable," but not because they had criminal records, apparently. Maybe they had been "prosecuted" by Church lawyers under canon law? But that procedure would not put them on any state's Sex Offender list, and the public would not be alerted. So I'd like to know where you got your information about the priests being already "prosecuted and registered" when they received the money. It seems not to be true.

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PiperMac52 | Jun 01, 2012, 03:15 PM EDT

If this is true it is another wound to the Body of Christ(his church) however, pointing out one wrong/sin to excuse another is never sound logic.

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BrianinKent | Jun 01, 2012, 02:50 PM EDT

The trouble is the Catholic Church, like MacDonalds, Google Facebook,Goldman Sachs, is a Corporation and like all Corporations is most concerned about their image and profitability. And like in Corporations, many of the managers (Clergy)within the Catholic Church PLC are self serving and ambitious. only concerned with self preservation and personal survival...

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pndirishandprou | Jun 01, 2012, 02:50 PM EDT

@BulldogMania: Ignorance is bliss, isn't?! It is no coincidence that you are on the defensive in this forum. With the support of a Republican Congress, Bush had six years to run the economy in the ground, and he did an excellent job at that. It wasn't until 2006 when the Democrats took over, but it was obviously too late to reverse the disastrous conservative policies that lead to a global depression. Had McCain won in 2008 there would most likely not have been a stimulus package, the US auto industry would be dead and unemployment would be well above 10% by now, and very likely America would be at war with Iran. Yes, the economy is still bad, but America has recovered and is in much better shape than most other countries that were dragged down by the Bush/Republican infused global depression. If the US economy was really in such bad shape and if voters thought that it is all Obama's fault, why do you think Romney is still not ahead in the polls? Romney's only hope is a huge turnout of the habitual racists, gun-crazy lunatics and the ignoramuses like yourself. But it will not be enough to unseat Obama.

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eiriamach | Jun 01, 2012, 02:14 PM EDT

Bullydog, this point is simple and straight-forward logic, so you should get it. You write, "I know what's driving it. Obama is desperate." First, you don't know that Obama is driving it, it's highly unlikely, and you haven't presented a shred of evidence. But more important is the logical point: even IF Obama were behind some kind of exposé of Cardinal Dolan, Obama's motivation ("out to 'get' him") would be completely irrelevant to the (im)morality of Dolan's actions. Acting logically, we assess the facts independently of the circumstances that uncovered them. IN NO WAY would Obama's involvement diminish Dolan's moral responsibility. If Obama were involved in an exposé, that fact might reflect badly on Obama, but the moral judgment on Dolan would still be the same. So your wild-eyed conspiracy theories have no effect except to show your irrationality on this issue.

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BulldogMania | Jun 01, 2012, 02:00 PM EDT

@ Andrew007 Mr. Bond I agree with your post, parts 1 and 2, with one exception. You said this has been going on since at least the 19th century. I think its been going on since the get go. Sadly, those with positions of authority abuse that authority. Hans J. Morgenthau, in his 1948 classic, Politics Among Nations, said absolute power corrupts absolutely. I especially agree with your comments about the bishops needing to be purged. They knew what was going on...they all have to go. If the Catholic Church is truly God's Church, as they claim, then don't tell me there aren't honest men to administer and lead it. Are we to believe the Holy Spirit only calls corrupt men into service?

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Andrew007 | Jun 01, 2012, 01:29 PM EDT

PART 2: I utterly believe that God Himself is absolutely FURIOUS with not just the child-abusing monsters and traitors to the Faith who’ve damaged and even destroyed many innocents (to the extent that most if not virtually all of them, I utterly believe, are rightly burning in Hellish torment), but also those who effectively aided and abetted in the devilish crimes (in line with Jesus Christ’s repeated stern warnings). I utterly believe that the if the RC Church is to survive AT ALL, the hierarchy itself needs to be PURGED of ALL who are tainted by this evil, and the ludicrous and UNBiblical medieval dogmas concerning enforced priestly celibacy (&c) be forever spewed out. Only then can the RC Church be cleansed, healed and restored, and only then can God’s Message be untainted when spoken by RC leaders, and only then can the wounded People be healed and restored … the question however as to whether this will actually happen is quite another thing … I will pray but I won’t be holding my breath …

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