Dolan's 2007 letter, which he wrote while serving as archbishop in Milwaukee, and the Vatican's response were included in thousands of pages of documents the archdiocese released as part of a deal reached in federal bankruptcy court between the archdiocese and clergy sex abuse victims suing it for fraud. Victims say the archdiocese transferred problem priests to new churches without warning parishioners and covered up priests' crimes for decades.
The victims' attorneys have accused Dolan, who currently is the cardinal of the Archdiocese of New York, of trying to hide the money as the Milwaukee archdiocese planned for bankruptcy. The archdiocese denies those allegations.
In a statement released Monday, Dolan called any suggestion he was trying to shield money from victims an "old and discredited" attack. Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for current Archbishop Jerome Listecki, said the money was always set aside in a separate fund for cemetery care and moving it to a trust just formalized that.
The release of about 6,000 pages of documents has drawn national attention because of the involvement of Dolan, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the nation's most prominent Roman Catholic official. Dolan, who has not been accused of transferring problem priests, took over as archbishop in mid-2002 after many victims had already come forward. But there have been questions about his response to the crisis.
