Cardinal Law should have died in jail for the role he played in enabling pedophilia within the Catholic Church
Pope Francis will attend the funeral of Cardinal Bernard Law in Rome this week and will take part in the funeral mass, according to media reports. It is a sad reminder that even Francis is infected with the continued horrific cover-up of rape and abuse of thousands in the Boston Archdiocese under Cardinal Law.
With his presence Pope Francis will be honoring the “Harvey Weinstein of the Catholic Church,” as Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen dubbed him. The cries of the innocent victims deserve to be heard at his mass not the 'Ave Maria.'
Law should have died in jail, not surrounded by holy men in Rome where he fled in 2002 after the truth came out. The only thing as bad as a pedophile is a pedophile-enabler and Law was certainly that. Pope Francis has deeply wounded the abuse survivors, who see in the Pope's attendance at Law's funeral the sneaking regard that Law, who got a high level job when he fled to Rome, was held in.
Read more: Cardinal Law responsible for Catholic Church sexual abuse cover up dies
Clergy sex abuse victims are furious that disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law is being given a funeral at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. https://t.co/yNaUfqZomH
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) December 21, 2017
Current Cardinal Sean O'Malley will not attend Cardinal Law's funeral
At least the current cardinal Sean O'Malley has made his own statement by not attending the funeral and making clear how he felt in pointed statements about Law.
“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,’’ O’Malley said. “I deeply regret that reality and its consequences.”
Thousands of children were raped and molested on Law’s watch and it would have continued only for the Boston Globe Spotlight team, which revealed Law’s role as enabler and reported all his abominable cover-up crimes. He was forced to flee to Rome just days, apparently, before police arrested him.
The mood of his victims was wonderfully expressed by one of them, Alexa MacPherson, of Dorchester.
“I hope the gates of Hell are swinging wide open to welcome him,” said MacPherson, 42.
Survivors of sexual abuse in Boston are furious that Cardinal Bernard Law will be given a funeral Mass in Rome with a closing rite by Pope Francis https://t.co/L9flXAO6C8
— The New York Times (@nytimes) December 21, 2017
Did Cardinal Law believe he could be Pope?
The Boston Globe stated that at the time he fled to Rome "Law had become the central figure in a scandal of criminal abuse, denial, payoff, and cover up that resonates around the world."
Why did Law refuse to act on pedophile reports? Why did he send priests, many of them Irish, from parish to parish and to other states when he knew they would re-offend? Had he no common humanity with little children who he was delivering into evil when he gave molesters new parishes?
Kevin Cullen has an intriguing theory. Law thought he had a shot at being pope.
Read more: Children of priests are coming out with their stories
Cardinal Law's funeral Mass tomorrow will be inside St. Peter's and Pope Francis will give a final blessing. The optics may be brutal for many survivors of clergy sexual abuse https://t.co/BmFGFUxhtK
— Michelle Boorstein (@mboorstein) December 20, 2017
Harvard-educated, handsome and leonine, a gifted communicator, he thought the Vatican beckoned, especially as John Paul was old and infirm and there seemed no obvious successor.
Luckily that never came to pass as he would surely have been forced to resign when the news of his cover-ups became public.
Law once lorded it over the Catholics of Boston, insisting on being called “Your eminence” and kept his eye on the main prize. He lived out his life in Rome with a sinecure post that kept him in a prominent position. His last political effort, according to MSNBC in 2012, was as “the person in Rome most forcefully supporting" Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori's petition to investigate and crack down on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a large group of American nuns seeking a greater role in the Church.
Why am I not surprised?
Do you think that Pope Francis should attend the funeral of Cardinal Law? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section, below.
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