A fall from grace
A cardinal resigns, but the church crisis shows no sign of abating
In the end, there was something almost Nixonian about the fall of Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned in disgrace last week under a torrent of damning disclosures in the Roman Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal. For nearly a year, Law had fought desperately to hold on to power, despite mounting evidence that he had knowingly allowed pedophile priests to continue working in the Boston archdiocese. And like Nixon, Law thought he could ride out the swirling storm of protests and resignation demands, protected by the power of his office. After all, it didn't matter what the newspapers or even the people demanded. Like all Roman Catholic prelates, Law served at the pleasure of the pope, and John Paul II had demonstrated time and again his personal confidence in the Boston cardinal, rejecting an earlier offer from Law in April to step down in the face of criticism over his handling of the scandal.
But last week, during another hastily arranged meeting with the pope, Law again offered his resignation, and this time the pope accepted. "To all those who have suffered from my shortcomings and mistakes, I both apologize and from them beg forgiveness," Law said in a statement released by the Vatican. What had changed the pope's mind, some church observers say, were horrifying revelations from newly released court records showing that priests in Boston had engaged in a variety of offenses beyond child sex abuse and faced few consequences. Among the new disclosures: One priest allegedly provided drugs to young parishioners, while another seduced prospective nuns by telling them he was Christ.
"Shocked." Reacting to the new disclosures, a group of 58 Boston-area priests demanded in a letter that Law step down, further--and perhaps fatally--eroding Law's credibility among his own flock. "Rome simply didn't realize how egregious the situation was," says Chester Gillis, theology department chairman at Georgetown University. But when they read the latest chilling documents, says Gillis, "they were shocked at how extensive it was and how clear it was that the church was morally compromised." Law became the 19th--and highest-ranking--bishop to step down in the wake of sex scandals since 1990.
It was a stark contrast to happier days, when Law, a rising figure in the American church, first came to Boston to succeed Cardinal Humberto Medeiros, who died in 1983. "After Boston, there's only heaven," Law proclaimed, after arriving from southern Missouri, where he had served as bishop for 11 years. And for most of his 18 years in Boston, he built a reputation as a serious and effective leader--who had the ear of John Paul II. "He was a comer," says the Rev. Richard McBrien, a Notre Dame theologian. "He was handsome, ambitious, and close to the pope."
Law was born in Torreon, Mexico, the son of a U.S. Air Force colonel--a Catholic--and a Presbyterian mother. He attended high school in the Virgin Islands and graduated from Harvard in 1953 with a degree in medieval history. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1961, he became involved in the civil rights movement in Mississippi, where his editorials in the diocesan newspaper landed him on the hit list of angry segregationists.
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