BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Eileen McNamara, Globe Columnist | April 12, 2006
Thomas F. Reilly flatters himself.
The attorney general of Massachusetts did not run Cardinal Bernard F. Law out of Boston any more than The Boston Globe did.
The Vatican yanked the discredited archbishop out of Brighton because it made a calculation that the checkbooks of Boston Catholics would stay shut as long as Law remained at the helm of the fourth largest diocese in the United States.
It is tempting, especially for politicians seeking higher office, to rewrite history, but events as recent as this one do not lend themselves so easily to recasting. Reilly came late to this stage, and his role had little impact on the drama that began with Judge Constance Sweeney's decision to open church files to public scrutiny and ended with Law comfortably ensconced in a basilica in Rome.
Certainly Reilly's impact was not nearly as far-reaching as the candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor suggested over the weekend. ''There weren't many other people in politics that were willing to stand up to the Archdiocese of Boston in the sexual abuse of children. You are looking at someone who did, and changed things forever," he said.