ROME
Agence France-Presse

December 20, 2017

Pope Francis paid his respects to the late US Cardinal Bernard Law on Wednesday, without mentioning the sex abuse scandal that forced the once-influential church figure to resign, an omission bound to rile victim associations.

“I raise prayers for the repose of his soul,” Francis said in a telegram after Law, 86, died in Rome.

The former Boston cardinal had fallen from grace after he allegedly shielded priests involved in a wide-reaching sex abuse scandal that shook the Roman Catholic Church and eclipsed his long and at one-time venerated career.

It is traditional for the pope to issue a message of condolence and prayer after the death of the red-hatted church seniors.

But the telegram made no reference to the paedophilia scandal, and neither did the official biography issued by the Vatican.

The biography merely said that Law, who was appointed Archbishop of…