BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald
By Marie Szaniszlo
Wednesday, August 31, 2005 - Updated: 02:44 AM EST
The Boston Archdiocese is still paying one of Cardinal Bernard Law's closest friends to study church law and serve as Law's secretary in Rome.
Boston Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley, who took over Law's post after he resigned in 2002 at the height of the clergy sexual abuse scandal, mentioned Monsignor Paul B. McInerny's appointment in the April 1 edition of The Pilot, the archdiocese's weekly newspaper – but not that McInerny would remain on the payroll.
Asked why the archdiocese is paying one of its priests to be secretary to the disgraced ex-archbishop, archdiocese spokesman Terrence C. Donilon said, ``I would only deduce nothing more than monsignor's desire to resume his studies in Rome and the fact he has worked with the cardinal previously.''
O'Malley is closing roughly one-quarter of the archdiocese's parishes because of a shortage of priests and a financial crisis caused by plummeting donations in the scandal's wake.