In April 2019, the Archdiocese of New York identified 120 priests and deacons accused of sexually abusing a child or possessing child pornography. Cardinal Dolan said in a letter that he "realizes the shame that has come upon our church due to the sexual abuse of minors.”
In 2011, Cardinal Dolan thanked the President of the Catholic League for issuing a press release that called the organization Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) “liars” and a “phony victims’ group.”
Despite emphatically denying that he sought to shield church funds from abuse victims during his tenure as the Archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009, The New York Times reported that Dolan requested permission from the Vatican to move nearly $57 million into a separate fund "to protect the assets from victims of clergy sexual abuse who were demanding compensation." The Vatican approved Dolan's request.
According to The New York Times, Cardinal Dolan "authorized payments of as much as $20,000 to sexually abusive priests as an incentive for them to agree to dismissal from the priesthood when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee.”
The “U.S. Catholic Church has shielded more than $2 billion in assets from abuse victims,” according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
Cardinal Dolan lives in a 15,000-square-foot mansion in Manhattan worth approximately $30 million. CNN reported in 2014 that at least 10 of the 34 active archbishops in the U.S. lived in buildings worth more than $1 million.