capital punishment, I would have to give him the benefit of the doubt to say that those two issues are open to some discussion and are not intrinsically evil. In the Catholic mindset that would not apply to abortion." Sexual abuse scandal In 2002, the St. Louis archbishop assigned Dolan to investigate Roman Catholic priests accused of sexual misconduct in the archdiocese. During the investigation, Dolan spoke with parishes, victims, and the media about the scandals, and invited victims of clerical abuse to come forward. Commenting on his meetings with them, Dolan said "it is impossible to exaggerate the gravity of the situation, and the suffering that victims feel, because I've spent the last four months being with them, crying with them, having them express their anger to me." Dolan dismissed abusive priests, which earned him the ire of some St. Louis parishioners who remained loyal to their dismissed priests and referred to Dolan's investigation as a "witch hunt". In a 2003 letter to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, requesting that the Vatican process be expedited for the laicization of priests who he believed were "remorseless and a serious risk to children", Dolan wrote: "As victims organize and become more public, the potential for true scandal is very real." In May 2012, The New York Times revealed that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, then headed by Dolan, had paid some abusive priests – although already dismissed from their priestly duties – up to $20,000 to leave the priesthood immediately rather than force the church to initiate time-consuming and expensive laicization proceedings against them. The archdiocese noted that the "unassignable priests" were still receiving full salaries and would continue to do so until they were formally laicized; and that the payouts were a "motivation" so that the priests would not contest being defrocked. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests sent a formal protest 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?" Dolan had previously responded to accusations that he had given "payoffs" to accused priests as "false, preposterous and unjust". In 2011, Dolan thanked the head of the Catholic League, Bill Donohue, for a press release, reproduced on the Archdiocese of New York website, in which Donohue referred to the non-profit support group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests as