The News-Sentinel
Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
(KRT) - The following editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday, April 12:
With the somber chants, pomp and public sorrow surrounding the death of Pope John Paul II still hanging over St. Peter's Square, American Catholics were confronted Monday by someone they may have thought had faded into the deepest recesses of the Vatican - Boston's disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law.
Law surfaced at the Vatican to lead one of nine consecutive, and very public, Masses - the novemdiales - memorializing the late pope. That is a distinction reserved for the most influential members of the church hierarchy.
How could Law qualify for such an honor?
In 2002 he resigned from his leadership post in Boston because of his central role in the pedophilia scandal there, which left the archdiocese in a shambles, both spiritually and financially. Settlements with abuse victims cost more than $85 million. As the scandal reverberated nationwide, the cost of an avalanche of legal judgments and settlements over the sexual abuse of children reached a staggering $840 million, according to one estimate.
Posted by kshaw at April 12, 2005 05:44 PM