In discussing Dolan's response, Ed Brayton says it plain and clear:
The real question here is not whether those payments were payoffs or charity; the real question is why the church chose this route rather than turning any information they had over to the police. We know why they didn’t — because the current pope, when he was a cardinal, explicitly ordered them not to do so. And that’s the real problem.It all comes back to the popey guy. No wonder they don't want to talk about it. If they spoke honestly about the scandal, it would bring the popey guy down in flames. That's quite a church they've got there, where the main culprit is their supreme leader. It speaks volumes about the Roman Catholic church.