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  If the Pope Is 'Ashamed,' Why Isn't He Ashamed That He's Sheltering Bernard Law?

By Bruce Tomaso
Dallas Morning News
April 15, 2008

http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/04/if-the-pope-is-ashamed-why-isn.html

That's the question that one longtime reader of this blog asks -- and it's a damn good one.

Law, of course, is the former archbishop of Boston who presided there while some of his priests ran amok sexually abusing children. Law did little if anything to stop the abuse. And when he was forced to step down as head of the archdiocese -- an archdiocese bitterly divided and financially battered by his long years of negligent leadership -- he was given a cushy job in Rome by Pope Benedict XVI's predecessor, John Paul II. Law remains a cardinal in Rome to this day.

Celebrity atheist Christopher Hitchens could be predictably counted upon to trash the Catholic Church on the eve of the pope's U.S. visit, and Hitchens doesn't disappoint those dull predictions in this column for Slate. Still, his observations about Law toward the end of the column are cogent, and they ought to be disturbing to any Catholic. Including the pope.

A series of lawsuits and depositions and disclosures had established beyond doubt that, as my Slate colleague Dahlia Lithwick phrased it, "Law was not only aware of egregious sexual misconduct among his subordinates but was apparently engaged in elaborate efforts to cover up incident after incident of child rape." (I pause to praise her for employing that latter term instead of the grubby all-purpose euphemism abuse.) To be specific, the cardinal admitted in a deposition that he knew that the Rev. John Geoghan had raped at least seven boys in 1984 before he approved Geoghan's transfer to another parish where other boys were at risk. Further disclosures revealed that the Rev. Paul Shanley, who at one point was facing trial for 10 counts of child rape and six counts of indecent assault and battery, had been moved from ministry to ministry in what amounted to an attempt to protect him. Law himself lied to a West Coast bishop about Shanley's history and certified in writing that another rapist priest, the Rev. Redmond Raux, had "nothing in his background" to make him "unsuitable to work with children." ...

So, I think that we are entitled to hear, as the vicar of Christ and holder of the Keys of Peter favors us with his presence, whether he regards his brother Bernard Law as an honored guest in the holy city or as someone who has been given asylum.

 
 

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