IRELAND
Irish Independent
Friday May 04 2012
ANY cardinal wishing to relinquish their role in the Catholic Church would have to proffer their resignation to the Pope.
The cleric usually travels to the Vatican for a face-to-face with the pontiff.
The resignation is then either accepted, or in some cases it is rejected by the Vatican and the cleric is encouraged to stay on in their post.
For example, a decade ago the late Pope John Paul II accepted the resignation of the embattled Boston cardinal Bernard Law in the wake of the church’s ongoing sex abuse scandal. He met for a short time face-to-face with the Pope in the Papal Library.
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