ROME
Fox News Latino
Hours after becoming the leader of the global Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis had a brief, unscheduled visit to a basilica in Rome that is home to a former Boston Archbishop who was involved in the diocese’s sex abuse scandal in 2002.
What transpired in the short interaction between the pope and Cardinal Bernard Law has become a point of contention between international media outlets and the Vatican.
Both the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano and the British tabloid the Daily Mail reported that during Pope Francis’ stop at the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore, he was briefly greeted by Law. The pope then demanded that Law be removed and went on to command that “he is not to come to this church anymore,” according to the Daily Mail.
Il Fatto Quotidiano reported that Pope Francis ordered Law to stop appearing in public at the basilica and that the new pope, “as his first act of purification,” is preparing to send Law to a cloistered monastery.
A Vatican spokesperson, however, told the National Catholic Reporter that the reports of Pope Francis’ order to move Law to a monastery are “completely and totally false.”
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