VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By RACHEL DONADIO

Published: December 22, 2012

ROME — Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday appointed a priest who handled sexual abuse cases under the disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston as the Vatican’s new sex crimes prosecutor.

The pope also pardoned his former butler, who was serving a prison term after leaking confidential documents in the Vatican’s most embarrassing security breach in decades.

The Vatican said that the Rev. Robert W. Oliver, a canon law specialist at the Archdiocese of Boston, would be the “promoter of justice” at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal office that reviews all abuse cases.

Father Oliver was among the canon lawyers who advised Cardinal Law on sexual abuse cases in Boston, the center of the church’s child abuse crisis in the United States. He continued advising the Archdiocese of Boston after the…