ROME
Daily Beast
December 20, 2017
By Barbie Latza Nadeau
Bernard Law, the American cardinal who became of the face of the Catholic clerical abuse scandal in America, is dead at the age of 86, but his cover-up legacy lives on.
ROME—Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston who resigned in shame at the height of the American clerical sex-abuse scandal in 2002, who died early Wednesday morning in a Roman hospital, never rose above the disgrace that brought him down—at least not outside the Vatican’s protective walls.
He was sent to Rome in 2004 by Pope John Paul II, and, despite making a public apology for his failings and culpability in the cover up of rampant clerical sex abuse against children, he remained active in policy-making dicastery departments of the Holy See. He was allowed to resign honorably from those duties in 2011 when he turned 80, the official age all cardinals cease such roles.
He seemed to escape any scrutiny or punishment by the church for his well-known crimes, and instead remained part of the Vatican elite under John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, enjoying celebrity status that is akin to a clerical club membership bestowed on all top cardinals in Rome. He was often spotted dining with high-ranking cardinals at Rome’s better restaurants.
Law, whose sins were laid bare in the Oscar winning film Spotlight, was also the frequent object of protesters who picketed and left posters with the faces of the many victims of sex abuse by predatory priests in front of the majestic Saint Mary Major basilica in Rome, where he has served as the chief priest. Much as devout Catholics make a Vatican stop part of any trip to Rome, victims of clerical sex abuse paid similar homage to the basilica where Law preached.
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