Released Documents Show Milwaukee Archdiocese Moving Money

Recently released documents show New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan requested Vatican permission to move Archdiocese funds into a protected trust when he was Catholic Archbishop in Milwaukee.

One of the documents the Milwaukee Archdiocese released Monday as part of its bankruptcy case is a 2007 letter from then-Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan. Dolan asks the Vatican for approval to move $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to shield the money from potential claims from clergy abuse victims. John Pilmaier heads the Wisconsin chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). Pilmaier says Dolan has gone against the Bible.

Pilmaier: “One of the scripture passages that comes to mind for me is when Jesus said, ‘What profit is it for a man to gain the whole world and lose his very soul?’ And that is, in my opinion, what Cardinal Dolan has done. He’s now the most powerful Catholic in the United States: Cardinal Archbishop of New York, and one of the ways he got there was on the backs of the victims of childhood sexual abuse.”

SNAP has asked the U.S. attorney in Milwaukee to investigate Cardinal Dolan for fraud, based on the money shifting that the Vatican quickly approved. But Milwaukee Archdiocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski says the cemetery care fund has been around for more than 100 years, and the money comes from people who buy a burial plot.

Topczewski: “So in 2007 all Archbishop Dolan did was change it from a designated fund into a formalized trust, following the laws of the state of Wisconsin.”

Topczewski says a bankruptcy judge earlier ruled that a parish fund was not part of the Archdiocese’s assets, and he hopes the judge rules the same way on the cemetery trust. SNAP says it can’t find any Wisconsin law requiring the trust for the perpetual care fund.