{"id":521340,"date":"2010-04-09T02:23:59","date_gmt":"2010-04-09T06:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/faithworld\/?p=12836"},"modified":"2010-04-09T02:23:59","modified_gmt":"2010-04-09T06:23:59","slug":"catholic-church-at-crossroads-in-milwaukee-over-abuse-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/521340","title":{"rendered":"Catholic Church at crossroads in Milwaukee over abuse charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_12837\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 359px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12837\" title=\"milwaukee\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/faithworld\/files\/2010\/04\/milwaukee-349x253-custom.jpg\" alt=\"milwaukee\" width=\"349\" height=\"253\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sexual abuse victims meet journalists outside the Cousin&#39;s Center, owned by the Milwaukee Archdiocese in St. Francis, Wisconsin March 25, 2010\/Allen Fredrickson <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Stung by fresh  charges of priestly sexual abuse and allegations of a cover-up that  reach the Vatican, the Roman Catholic Church in the United States faces a  crisis of empty pews and empty coffers.<\/p>\n<p>Attendance was down noticeably at some  Easter Sunday services in Milwaukee, reflecting the litany of troubles  facing the U.S. Church and a torrent of criticism over its handling of  abuse cases.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;The Church is at a  crossroads,&#8221; <\/em>said Tim Flanner, 51, a member of St. John Vianney church. <em> &#8220;There are people who are really ticked off, and there are a lot of  them.\u00a0 The Church needs to address  its own failures, acknowledge its own guilt, and ask for forgiveness,  and heal as a family.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Last  month, amid explosive charges that a now-dead priest molested some 200  boys at a school for the deaf over more than two decades, Milwaukee  Archbishop Jerome Listecki apologized to the victims and acknowledged  the Church was wrong to not defrock the priest, Rev. Lawrence Murphy.<\/p>\n<p>But beyond the church&#8217;s tarnished  reputation, the financial fallout from paying settlement claims to  victims is being felt in Milwaukee and dioceses across the United  States. Four lawsuits are pending  in Milwaukee, and the diocese has put its headquarters, the Cousins  Center, up for sale to help pay $27 million in settlement costs that  have threatened to bankrupt the diocese.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/newsOne\/idUSTRE6380S620100409\">Read the full article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/RTRFaithWorld\"><span style=\"color: #005a84;\">Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at      RTRFaithWorld<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sexual abuse victims meet journalists outside the Cousin&#39;s Center, owned by the Milwaukee Archdiocese in St. Francis, Wisconsin March 25, 2010\/Allen Fredrickson Stung by fresh charges of priestly sexual abuse and allegations of a cover-up that reach the Vatican, the Roman Catholic Church in the United States faces a crisis of empty pews and empty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4076,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}