NY Catholic Church 'worried' Child Victims Act would pass: report
Category: News & Politics
Via: texan1211 • 3 years ago • 23 commentsBy: Tamar Lapin (New York Post)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Tamar Lapin
January 14, 2021 | 9:25pm |Updated January 14, 2021 | 9:26pm
Enlarge ImageNew York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan, who allegedly was "worried" about the passing of the Child Victim's Act.James Messerschmidt
More On:
Child Victims Act
The Archdiocese of New York may have been motivated to start its own compensation program for victims of child sex abuse as a way to keep lawmakers from passing the Child Victims Act, a report claimed Thursday.
New York Archbishop Timothy Cardinal Dolan had apparently hoped that the payments to victims would remain in-house — and "worried" about the landmark legislation, ABC News reported.
The archdiocese established its independent compensation program in 2016 "to bring a sense of healing, resolution and compensation to victim-survivors," it said at the time.
But a transcript of a confidential Dec. 2017 call obtained by ABC implies the key reason Dolan "decided to bite the bullet and create a program" was because of the "movement afoot in Albany" over the Child Victims Act.
The claims were made by Kenneth Feinberg, a mediator hired by Dolan to administer the archdiocese's Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, during a teleconference with reps of three Upstate New York dioceses, the report said.
"I think the Cardinal feels that it is providing his lawyers in Albany with additional persuasive powers not to reopen the statute," Feinberg said of the program.
"We are already doing this, why bother?," he added. "We are taking care of our own problem. I think that is guiding Cardinal Dolan as well."
Dolan himself was not listed among the participants of the call and doesn't appear to have been present, the outlet said.
The Child Victims Act was signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2019 and made it easier for people who were abused as children to sue for damages as adults.
The church withdrew its longstanding opposition to the measure shortly before it was expected to pass the legislature.
Hundreds of people have since filed lawsuits under the new provision against the church and other institutions.
In touting the archdiocese's program, Feinberg argued that more negotiated settlements with victims would bolster the arguments of church lobbyists in Albany who said the legislation was unnecessary since justice was already underway.
"We want to be able to show Albany that people are accepting this money and signing releases. You don't need to change the statute," he reportedly said in the call.
Feinberg also noted that the legislation could open up various Dioceses to much heftier claims than were being paid out under the archdiocese's program, saying "Right now, we have not paid any claim, however horrific, at more than $500,000."
Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling said the independent program was established to "address the desire of victim-survivors of clergy sexual abuse to find healing and compensation."
"The program was offered to state lawmakers as a possible model for an alternative to litigation as passed in the Child Victims Act," he said in a statement to ABC.
"We still believe that the program has great merit, and continue to offer it to victim-survivors who desire to participate in the program."
He didn't address Feinberg's comments directly, saying: "You would have to ask him."
"Cardinal Dolan was not a participant in that call, and cannot comment on what he may or may not have said."
In his own statement, Feinberg touted the "success" of the independent program, saying it had paid out $258 million to victims.
"The program has been extremely well received and individual abuse claims continue to be received and processed notwithstanding the change in the NY statute."
Filed underarchdiocese of new york, catholic church, child abuse, Child Victims Act, lawsuits, timothy dolan, 1/14/21
Share this article:
Read Next
Nine charged in Flint water fiasco, ex-Gov. Snyder pleads ...
Article is LOCKED by author/seeder
Who is online
458 visitors
Still attempting to sweep its known abuses under the rug.
When will the Catholic Church change?
Oh, I see you had a sudden brainstorm. LOL.
Don't be jealous!
[deleted]
When society has more power in governments than the Catholic Church.
The problem the Catholic Church has with child sexual abuse is the same problem the rest of the world has, there is a percentage of people, usually males, who are sexually attracted to children. It happens everywhere where these people are given unsupervised access to children, in other words churches, public schools, athletic clubs, scouting, camps, choirs, etc, and most of all, in families. By far the most child sexual abuse occurs within families.
To act as if this is mainly a problem of the Catholic Church is blatant misrepresentation and sometimes the result of anti-Catholic bigotry.
Stay on topic, please.
If you want to talk about child abuse in general, you will need to seed your own article.
Thanks!
Where in my comment do you see me talking about child abuse in general? The only two times I mention the word "abuse" it has "sexual" in front of it.
Don't think you are going to outwit me. Aint gonna happen.
For Pope's sake, JR!!!
You wrote this:
WTF were you prattling on about then?
“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.”
― Harlan Ellison
[deleted]
This article doesnt even mention Catholic priests as the offenders, although obviously they would fall under the category of teacher.
Off topic.
Still off topic.
Please don't respond to off topic comments and encourage him to make more of them.
Even if I do agree with you!
You're the seeder, if you don't want anyone to respond to John's comments you could easily flag them as off topic and delete them. No one see's them so they won't be able to respond...easy peasy
I did flag those comments, thanks.
Apparently, some seeders don't get the privilege of declaring what the topic is on their seeds.
The seed is about the Catholic Church and child sexual abuse. My comment 2 is about the Catholic Church and child sexual abuse. For some bizarre reason you said it was off topic. You have to own your own actions.
No, what you posted was pure deflection.
You want to talk about child abuse--as long as we don't talk about your Catholic Church pedophiles and the fact that the Church tried to sweep it all under the rug for decades.
You attempt to derail the conversation by trying to compare what the Church basically sanctioned to what occurs in society at large.
Had the topic been what child abuse occurs in society at large, I would have seeded such an article.
The child sexual abuse committed by catholic priests is a small percentage of all child sexual abuse, yet is is "discussed" by people like you as if it were all of it.
I don't play that game.
None of my comments were off topic.
Like previously stated, if you want to talk about child abuse occurring in society as a whole, that is a different topic.
Seed one if that is what you want to discuss--this is about the abuses perpetrated by pedophile Catholic priests and how the Church attempted to sweep it under the rug.
And I know you don't want to talk about THAT, so perhaps its best if you leave this seed.
Is there a more corrupt institution on the planet than the Catholic Church? QAnon was right (to a degree) that there is a global pedophile ring, but it isn't liberals, democrats, Jews, or goblins, it is the RCC.