Cardinal Bernard Law, symbol of church sex abuse scandal, dead at 86 [with video]

ROME
CNN

December 20, 2017

By Emanuella Grinberg

(CNN) Cardinal Bernard Law, the former Boston archbishop who resigned in disgrace during the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal, has died, the Vatican confirmed. He was 86.

Law died in Rome, where he had served as archpriest of the Papal Liberian Basilica of St. Mary Major after he was forced to resign in 2002 as archbishop of Boston.

Law’s name became emblematic of the scandal that continues to trouble the church and its followers around the globe after it was revealed that he and other bishops before him had covered for pedophile priests in the Boston Archdiocese.

Law at the time apologized during a news conference to victims of abuse by a priest, John Geoghan, who had been moved from parish to parish, despite Law’s knowledge of his abuse of young boys. Law insisted Geoghan’s abuse was in the past.

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