ROME
Religion News Service
December 20, 2017
By Cathy Lynn Grossman
(RNS) — When a leading cardinal in the Catholic church dies, his legacy of caring for priests and believers are usually the highlights of remembrances.
Not so with Cardinal Bernard Law, driven out in disgrace as Archbishop of Boston in 2002. His priests and his people had demanded he step down after a year of painful revelations that the diocese had known about — and sheltered — scores of priests who sexually abused children and teens.
After Law died Wednesday (Dec. 20), his successor, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, issued a statement that began with an apology to “ … all who experienced the trauma of sexual abuse by clergy, whose lives were so seriously impacted by those crimes, and their families and loved ones.”
O’Malley offered them his “sincere apologies,” and continued prayer and support for healing, before turning again to the tragic legacy of Law, putting him in the context of a wider church failure.
“As Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Law served at a time when the Church failed seriously in its responsibilities to provide pastoral care for her people, and with tragic outcomes failed to care for the children of our parish communities. I deeply regret that reality and its consequences….”
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, went directly to the same point, beginning his statement by urging any victim today to contact both their church and their local law enforcement.
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