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| Zwiebel is the guy without the cross |
Questioned at the time about the news that one particularly notorious pedophile cleric had been given a “payoff” to leave the priesthood, Cardinal Dolan, then the archbishop, responded that such an inference was “false, preposterous and unjust.”
But a document unearthed during bankruptcy proceedings for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and made public by victims’ advocates reveals that the archdiocese did make such payments to multiple accused priests to encourage them to seek dismissal, thereby allowing the church to remove them from the payroll.
A spokesman for the archdiocese confirmed on Wednesday that payments of as much as $20,000 were made to “a handful” of accused priests “as a motivation” not to contest being defrocked. The process, known as “laicization,” is a formal church juridical procedure that requires Vatican approval, and can take far longer if the priest objects.
“It was a way to provide an incentive to go the voluntary route and make it happen quickly, and ultimately cost less,” said Jerry Topczewski, the spokesman for the archdiocese. “Their cooperation made the process a lot more expeditious.”
Cardinal Dolan, who is president of the national bishops’ conference and fast becoming the nation’s most high-profile Roman Catholic cleric, did not respond to several requests for comment.
A victims advocacy group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, sent a letter of protest to the current archbishop of Milwaukee on Wednesday asking,
“In what other occupation, especially one working with families and operating schools and youth programs, is an employee given a cash bonus for raping and sexually assaulting children?”
Experts in the Catholic Church’s response to sexual abuse say that payouts to dismissed priests are not uncommon. When a man becomes a priest, the church is expected to care for his needs for a lifetime.
The newly revealed document is the minutes of a meeting of the finance council of the Milwaukee archdiocese from March 7, 2003, which Cardinal Dolan attended. The archdiocese was facing a flood of potential lawsuits by people claiming abuse, and the church’s insurance company was refusing to cover the costs because it said the church had been negligent. The minutes noted that “unassignable priests” — those suspected of abuse — were still receiving full salaries.
The minutes say that those at the meeting discussed a proposal to “offer $20,000 for laicization ($10,000 at the start and $10,000 at the completion the process).” Instead of salary, they would receive a $1,250 monthly pension benefit, and, until they found another job, health insurance.
The first known payment in Milwaukee was to Franklyn Becker, a former priest with many victims. Cardinal Dolan said in response to a reporter’s question at the time that the payment was “an act of charity,” so that Mr. Becker could pay for health insurance.
According to church documents, Mr. Becker was accused of abusing at least 10 minors, and given a diagnosis of pedophilia in 1983. The church paid more than $16 million to settle lawsuits involving him and one other priest.
And.....Talking about lying, deceitful criminals:
Last week, The Times reported:
In an effort to show a unified front in their campaign against the birth control mandate, 43 Roman Catholic dioceses, schools, social service agencies and other institutions filed lawsuits in 12 federal courts on Monday, challenging the Obama administration’s rule that their employees receive coverage for contraception in their health insurance policies. The same day Gallup released a poll that found that an astonishing 82 percent of American Catholics find birth control to be morally acceptable.
SOURCE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/us/cardinal-authorized-payments-to-abusers.html?hp
From The UOJ Archives: CLICK LINK BELOW - GREAT READ: http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/search?q=dolan+to+Zweibel
THIS JUST IN FROM NPR - 8:54 AM:
"These victims don't believe they have anywhere else to turn. They live in this community, they want to continue to live in this community, and they want to live at peace. And they're not allowed to live at peace because no one gives a damn about victims. All they care about is protecting the abuser," Hynes said.
Hynes called the effort of the community to protect possible abusers "relentless".
READ: "Brooklyn DA: Intimidation in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Sex Abuse Cases Worse Than Mob Cases - CLICK: http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2012/may/30/brooklyn-da-says-victim-intimidation-orthodox-jewish-sex-abuse-cases-worse-mob-cases/
2 comments:
From ye good ol' UOJ files:
"The Life and Times of Matisyahu Pickwick Salomon 4 said...(October 27, 2011)
Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon of the Lakewood yeshiva is a nice man. An avuncular sort that everyone would love as an uncle or zeide grandpappy.
But how does such an out-of-touch goody-two-shoes get so much attention? Especially when he makes pronouncements that his own employers at his yeshiva and the hard core rabbis over at the Agudath Israel of America don't listen to a thing he says and don't care what he says as he is powerless before them because they have tougher and crueler taskmasters over them in the vaunted scary politburo Moetzes council of Torah sages?
Who thought of the idea to bring him over from ye merry olde Victorian England to the super hyped up USA?
It must have been someone's idea.
But whose?
When his predecessor in the same post Rav Noson Wachtfogel z"l passed away who started brainstorming that aha, ye good ol Matisyahu Salomon happily ensconced in far, far, far away ye quaint olde Gateshood would be just the man to fill the shoes of old time Litvish rov Noson Wachtfogel?
Was it a Kotler kin who thought of hiring him?
Was it someone over at Aguda?
Was it some unknown layman?
Just how does anyone get noticed enough in the shadowy Lakewood yeshiva world to come into the running to be plucked from total obscurity and irrelevance to get pole-vaulted into a position as mashgiach ruchani (spiritual advisor) to America's largest post high-school yeshiva and become its most touted and self-assured spokesperson?
Has anyone been told the truth especially since whenever he opens his mouth he does not sound a ki hu zeh scintilla like anyone listening to him in thought, speech or even in his actions as one pictures him standing there with an English brolly and bowler hat straight out of the 18th or 19th centuries where he has last spent time appearing in Charles Dickens novels as the doppelganger to the quaint Pickwick.
7:32 AM, October 27, 2011"
The great "tzadik" Nechemia Nazi(r) Gottlieb, the Grand Inquisitor of the "TAG" (Technology Awareness Group) Inquisition the new ideological incarnation of Leib Tropper's defunct "EJF" backed by the same people (one making geirus frummer and the other making the Internet frummer), is so "holy" his "holines" drives him to invoke the methods worthy of a defunct not-lamented totalitarian Nazi(r) (ubber alles) state that existed from 1933 to 1945. He claims to have been a great Jewish educator (mechanech) but really he was fired from his job in Lakewood after he tried his thug-tactics he imbibed from the WORST OF Meah Shearim's "educational system" where he grew up, as reported by FM and elsewhere:
"May 09, 2012
Rabbi Behind Anti-Internet Rally Savagely Beat Children
Rabbi Nechemia Gottlieb,jpgRabbi Nechemia Gottlieb, the rabbi tasked by the haredi world's leading rabbis with creating and managing the anti-Internet asifa, rally, scheduled to be held at CitiField later this month, allegedly savagely beat young students in the yeshiva he ran in Lakewood and encouraged other teachers to do the same.
This private Facebook post by a younger very well placed haredi figure confirms what I was told earlier this week by a source:
Update 12:43 am CDT 5-9-2012 –
a former student of Gottlieb's writes:
…I went to the school and experienced first-hand the viciousness of this Nazi. This is besides for the fact that he knowingly lied to the parents and gedolim who inquired about it; but that's not the issue. He used to beat me and the other kids all the time. I'm talking about punching, slapping, kicking, throwing us on the floor and stepping on us. I was all of eight years old at the time.…"
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