Thursday, February 21, 2013

Cardinal-Electors Dolan and Mahony Deposed Before Heading to Rome for Papal Elections





As Laurie Goodstein is reporting now for the New York Times, a week before the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan, is scheduled to go to Rome to elect the new pope, he's just been deposed in New York regarding his knowledge of abuse cases in his former archdiocese of Milwaukee. As Goodstein also notes, another cardinal-elector, His Eminence Roger Cardinal Mahony, will be deposed in Los Angeles later this week (see also Joshua McElwee at National Catholic Reporter). 


Kristine Ward of National Survivor Advocates Coalition responds to the news report of the two cardinals' depositions:

It should be a jarring thing for Catholics in the pews and the society at large that two Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church, Timothy Dolan and Roger Mahony, are being deposed regarding sexual abuse cases before their flights to Rome to participate in what is called their "sacred duty" to elect the next pope. 
Quite a juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane.

For information about Dolan's involvement in pay-offs to abusive priests in the Milwaukee archdiocese--a story that hit the news last summer, see this previous Bilgrimage posting. On Dolan's scheme to shelter Milwaukee archdiocesan funds from claims by abuse victims by hiding millions in cemetery trust funds, see this posting by Colleen Baker at Enlightened Catholicism.

As Kris Ward aptly notes, one day, a deposition about cover-up of abuse cases, the next, a flight to Rome to vote on the new pope. 

All in a day's work where the cardinal-electors are concerned. . . .

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