Law resignation is step toward restoring trust
The pope on Friday accepted the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law as archbishop of Boston. While Law’s resignation comes 11 months after it should have been tendered – once the first allegations surfaced that he engaged in a practice of covering up for priests accused of molesting children and reassigning them to unsuspecting parishes – it does little to restore trust in the Roman Catholic Church. This has been a difficult year for the faithful. Many Catholics, especially those raised before the changing times of Vatican II, have a blind faith in the Church and believe that those men chosen by God to become his representatives on Earth are close to infallible. Society’s moral leaders are expected to live in ways that their followers wish to emulate.
Instead, since January when the Boston scandal first broke nearly every day is filled with news accounts of more incidents of sexual abuse and more attempts by church officials to hush these crimes, even in some cases paying victims to be quiet.
During the past year, 325 priests have either been defrocked or have resigned amid allegations. Even the Greensburg Diocese, which includes Fayette, has had to take a close look at its files and found that a few of its priests broke both God’s and man’s laws. Greensburg Bishop Anthony Bosco has done a tremendous job in keeping the public informed of his investigations, the outcomes and the procedures adopted to ensure that no acts of sexual abuse will go unpunished and that civil authorities will be notified.
It is leaders such as Bishop Bosco who will be charged with restoring trust in the church. There is no room in the church hierarchy for leaders such as Cardinal Law who protected guilty priests and left them free to prey upon gullible children. Yet his resignation isn’t a cure-all.
The lawsuits will continue. The financial hardship will pinch Catholics forced to acknowledge that their tithing could be used to bail the church out of this scandal created by men who abused the power entrusted to them.