ROME
Boston Globe
By Michael Rezendes
| Globe Staff
May 05, 2012
Three respected Catholic publications are reporting that Cardinal Bernard F. Law, the controversial former Boston archbishop, played a key role in the Vatican’s decision to tighten its grip on the largest association of Catholic nuns in the United States.
The Vatican announced its initiative on April 18, naming three American prelates to ensure that US nuns conform to Church doctrine, which has grown more conservative under Pope John Paul II and his successor, Pope Benedict XVI.
Earlier this week, a columnist for The Tablet, a British Catholic weekly, reported that the Vatican’s initiative was sparked by Archbishop William E. Lori, who was recently named to lead the Archdiocese of Baltimore, who “formally petitioned’’ the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to investigate the nuns.
The Tablet also reported that Law was “the person in Rome most forcefully supporting Bishop Lori’s proposal.’’
But Lori denied the first of those assertions in a statement issued to the Globe yesterday through the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
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