December
13, 2002 3:00 p.m. State
of Law
The Boston cardinal resigns.
nd so, Bernard
Cardinal Law is gone. Going into his meeting with Pope John Paul II, the
man who entrusted him in 1984 with leadership of the Catholic Church in
Boston, Law had lost control of his archdiocese. He had to face the pope
knowing he was to face a criminal grand jury. His archdiocese is considering
bankruptcy protection from sex-abuse plaintiffs suing the archdiocese.
And there is no end in sight to the numbing revelations of sexual corruption
among the Boston clergy, and the irrefutable evidence that the cardinal
and his bishops recycled sex abusers, and lied about it as a matter of
course.
The pontiff could
have taken any of several courses of action, but he did the most sensible
thing, and accepted Law's resignation cleanly. There will be no coadjutor
bishop of Boston, sparing the archdiocese further turmoil that would surely
have only grown with Law remaining in some official capacity in Boston.
The pope appointed the head of the archdiocesan seminary to run things
in Boston until a new archbishop can be named. Law is expected to return
to Boston this weekend, where he can begin preparing for his testimony
before the grand jury investigating the possibility of criminal wrongdoing
in the archdiocese's handling of sex-abuse cases.
The scandal, obviously, is not over. Not in Boston, and not anywhere else
in America. On Thursday, Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly said
the depth and breadth of the corruption in the archdiocese goes "far
beyond one person. There are other people that knew, other bishops, perhaps
even the Vatican, that were aware of the scope of the scandal."
"There was a cover-up, an elaborate scheme to keep [knowledge of
priest sex abuse] away from law enforcement, to keep it quiet," he
told reporters. "The Church and the leadership of the Church felt
it was more important to protect the Church than any children, and as
a result of that, needless numbers, countless numbers, of children were
harmed."
Reilly intends to pursue any avenue of prosecution of Law and his past
subordinates, whose number includes five sitting American bishops, but
it is unlikely that state law gives him any serious option for holding
the bishops criminally liable. Nevertheless, the investigation is important
in that it stands to reveal to the public the extent of the cover-up.
Determining how it happened is necessary to determining how to prevent
it from happening again. As Reilly points out, the Catholic Church has
been through these scandals in the 1980s and 1990s, and has emerged with
the same system that enabled child sex abuse intact. The Church must be
cleaned up now, for its own good and the good of the children and families
who are as much a part of it as any cleric.
The departure of Law, coming nearly a year after the release of damning
church records in the John Geoghan case, and swift demands for his resignation
by a broad range of Catholic voices, including prominent conservative
orthodox Catholics like William F. Buckley, William Bennett, Peggy Noonan,
and others, is necessary for the recovery process to begin in the shattered
archdiocese. With Law gone, the door is open for new leadership, an archbishop
who is untainted by scandal and the Boston old-boy network of churchmen
that helped perpetuate it. There is no guarantee that the next archbishop
of Boston will be a man who has what it takes to restore credibility to
the Church there, and institute real and lasting reforms, but at least
that possibility now exists.
Complicating the pope's decision to remove Law is a fear the Vatican has
long been said to have had regarding the cardinal's departure under fire:
the domino effect in the American hierarchy. If the Boston cardinal can
be forced to resign because of the way he handled sex-abuse allegations
against priests, who might be next on the list? Why should priests and
parishioners in dioceses led by bishops who have handled sex-abuse cases
in the same way as Law be content to live with their current leadership?
It will likely not escape the notice of fed-up priests in dioceses across
the country that the single act that most influenced the Vatican's ending
Law's rule in Boston was the letter sent by 58 Boston priests to the cardinal,
asking him to go. That made an enormous impression on Rome, though probably
not for the right reasons (that is, why did the remonstrations made by
the laity fail to move the Holy See, but not those by priests?). In any
case, the Boston priests who signed the letter have demonstrated the power
of priests who refuse to keep silent in the face of episcopal malfeasance.
Their example will surely embolden their colleagues across the nation.
Nor will it escape notice elsewhere that the state of affairs in Boston
was brought about by three other powerful counter forces: 1) Judge Constance
Sweeney, who was fed up with Church lies and cover-ups; 2) Thomas Reilly,
an aggressive state attorney general, who put the screws to Church leaders
with criminal subpoenas; and 3) a diligent local media, first among them
the Boston Globe, which grabbed this story and wouldn't let go.
There are those who accuse the judge of unfairness, the attorney general
of grandstanding, and the media of anti-Catholic bias. There may be a
measure of truth in any and all of these allegations, but here's the bottom
line: Horrendous crimes were committed by priests against children and
others, and those crimes were systematically covered up by Church officials,
who in many cases allowed the offenders to continue in ministry, where
they went on to abuse further. If not for the state and the media, we
would know these things, and the system would still be in place. They
have done the Church a favor.
Finally, there is the matter of the bankruptcy option for the archdiocese,
which the pope also discussed with Law. No one knows yet what Rome's directive
to Law will be. Boston has to have Rome's approval before it can file
for Chapter-11 protection. While it is not likely that Rome would outright
forbid such a move, it is hard to think that the Vatican would be willing
to endorse it at this point. Insurers of other dioceses will shiver if
they see the Holy See green lighting bankruptcy. More importantly, under
American bankruptcy law, a Chapter-11 filing would make the archdiocese's
financial records public, and bring the state in to supervise the Church's
spending. It is difficult to imagine the Vatican yielding that much oversight
power to Caesar, particularly considering how hard it has fought throughout
history to maintain independence from state control.
Yet eleven months ago, when the Geoghan trial got underway in Boston,
it was difficult to imagine that by year's end, it would have come to
this, not only for Bernard Law, but for the Catholic Church in America.
It is even more difficult to imagine what the next year will bring. In
Boston at least, it will bring a new archbishop, which is the best news
Catholics there have had in a long time.
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nd so, Bernard
Cardinal Law is gone. Going into his meeting with Pope John Paul II, the
man who entrusted him in 1984 with leadership of the Catholic Church in
Boston, Law had lost control of his archdiocese. He had to face the pope
knowing he was to face a criminal grand jury. His archdiocese is considering
bankruptcy protection from sex-abuse plaintiffs suing the archdiocese.
And there is no end in sight to the numbing revelations of sexual corruption
among the Boston clergy, and the irrefutable evidence that the cardinal
and his bishops recycled sex abusers, and lied about it as a matter of
course. 
