BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News
By Jay Tokasz
News Staff Reporter
The surprise in Maine among people who worked closely with Bishop Richard J. Malone was that he hadn’t moved sooner to a larger diocese.
Malone is a rising star in the rarefied world of the Catholic hierarchy.
Not only can he manage people effectively, he radiates confidence in explaining Catholic beliefs under a media microscope. He has juggled a massive reorganization of parishes in the mostly rural Diocese of Portland, while raising more than $40 million in capital funds. …
Pope John Paul II named him an auxiliary bishop in 2000, a post that put him in charge of the Boston archdiocese’s south region. Two years later, the archdiocese was in the throes of the devastating clergy sexual abuse scandal that ended up rippling from Boston across many of the nation’s Catholic dioceses.
Malone’s superior, Cardinal Bernard Law, resigned in disgrace over the manner in which the hierarchy had handled abuse complaints.
Questions arose, too, about Law’s inner circle and what role its members might have played in shuffling abusive priests.
Early on in Portland, Malone was peppered with questions about whether he was complicit in the cover-ups.
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