Adnkronos
November 21, 2011
http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Aki/English/Religion/Vatican-Disgraced-American-cardinal-resigns-from-Rome-job_312667917109.html
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The former Boston archbishop who resigned from his job in 2002 amid a sex abuse scandal that embroiled the Catholic Church and was subsequently given a prestigious job in Rome has tendered his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI.
Cardinal Bernand Law's resignation as archpriest of St. Mary Major basilica - one of the Vatican's four main important basilica's - was accepted by the pope and he will be replaced by Spanish Monsignor Santos Abril y Castello, the Vatican said Monday in a statement.
Law's 2004 appointment was met with an outcry by victims of child molestation by priests in the Boston area that he oversaw for 18 years. Though much of the abuse predated him as archbishop, reports of the abuse were hushed up and many of the perpetrators were relocated to other jobs.
Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley who succeeded Law as Boston archbishop agreed to pay almost 600 victims an 85 million-dollar settlement. US dioceses have paid out almost 3 billion dollars in settlements to victims, the Associated Press news agency reported.
Law on 4 November turned 80, meaning he qualified for retirement.
His resignation was welcomed by victims' advocates.
“With all due respect, society has not lost a great protector of children. Bernard Cardinal Law should return to Boston and address the clergy sex abuse victims who he let be sexually molested while he was cardinal,” attorney Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston attorney who has represented numerous victims, told the Boston Globe newspaper.
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