VATICAN CITY
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 22, 2012
VATICAN CITY — The pope has put a priest from the archdiocese of Boston, the center of a clerical sex abuse scandal in the United States, in charge of the Vatican’s review of sex abuse by priests.
The Vatican said Saturday that the Rev. Robert W. Oliver, a canonical specialist in the archdiocese, would succeed Bishop Charles Scicluna, who was recently named auxiliary bishop in his native Malta.
Bishop Scicluna’s departure had sparked some fears among sex abuse victims that the Vatican might roll back on the tough line on clergy abuse he charted in his 10 years at the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
The Vatican office, which Pope Benedict XVI headed for nearly a quarter century, reviews all cases of clerical sex abuse, telling bishops how to proceed against accused priests.
The pope also granted his former butler a Christmas pardon on Saturday for stealing the pontiff’s private papers and leaking them to a journalist, one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent times.
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