VATICAN CITY
The New York Times
By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: December 22, 2012
ROME — Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday named a priest from Boston, the epicenter of the sexual abuse crisis in the United States, as the Vatican’s new sex crimes prosecutor. He 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 two announcements, which came on the weekend before Christmas, were a telling juxtaposition for a complex, ancient institution that has always tread a fine line between grace and justice, crime and punishment, sin and redemption.
The Rev. Robert W. Oliver, a canon law specialist at the Archdiocese of Boston, will be the “promoter of justice” at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal office that reviews all abuse cases, the Vatican said Saturday.
The abuse crisis erupted in Boston in 2002, when church records unsealed in a court case revealed that the diocese had transferred priests known to have been pedophiles. The scandal led to the resignation that year of Cardinal Bernard F. Law as archbishop of Boston.
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