Vatican City, Dec 19, 2017 / 09:38 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Bernard Law has died after a brief hospitalization due to congenital heart failure, according to sources close to the cardinal and a report from the Boston Globe. He was 86 years old.
Law was appointed Archbishop of Boston in 1984, and resigned from the position on Dec. 13, 2002, after reports revealed that he did not disclose multiple allegations of clerical sexual abuse to the police or to the public, or intervene to remove priests accused of sexual abuse from priestly ministry.
“It is my fervent prayer that this action may help the Archdiocese of Boston to experience the healing, reconciliation and unity which are so desperately needed,” Law wrote at the time of his resignation.
After his resignation, Law moved to Rome. He was assigned as the Archpriest of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in 2004 by Pope John Paul II, a largely ceremonial position from which he retired in 2011, at the age of 80. The appointment was controversial, especially as many in the US continued to call for his criminal prosecution.
Law was born on November 4, 1931 in Torreon, Mexico, the son of a Catholic father, an Air Force colonel, and a Presbyterian mother.
Law attended high school in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and graduated from Harvard University in 1953. He was ordained a priest on May 21, 1961 for the Natchez-Jackson diocese in Mississippi, and was named vicar general of the diocese ten years later. He also served as a writer and editor for the diocesan newspaper, the Mississippi Register.
In 1973, he was appointed Bishop of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, in Missouri.
As a young priest and bishop, he was involved in ecumenism and the civil rights movement. In 1975, he organized the resettlement in his diocese of 166 Vietnamese priests and brothers who had fled Vietnam as refugees.
In the late 1970s, he served as chairman for the U.S. Bishop’s Committee on Ecumenical and Interracial Affairs, and, in the late 1990s, as chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities.
In 1984, Law was appointed Archbishop of Boston, and in 1985 he was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II.
In 1985, at an Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, Law was among the first to call for a universal catechism, which prompted the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1992.
“I propose a commission of cardinals to prepare a draft of a conciliar catechism to be promulgated by the Holy Father after consulting the bishops of the world. In a shrinking world a global village-national catechisms will not fill the current need for clear articulation of the church’s faith,” Law said at the synod.
Beginning with visits to Cuba in 1985 and 1989, Law was instrumental in laying the diplomatic groundwork that made possible Pope John Paul II’s visit to the country in 1998. Law met with Fidel Castro on several occasions, and arranged aid from the Archdiocese of Boston to support Cuba’s Catholic Church.
In 2001, Cardinal Law became the subject of international criticism after he admitted that he knew of the accusations of serial abuse against retired priest John Geoghan, and responded by moving Geoghan to another parish rather than going to the authorities.
Law apologized to Geoghan’s victims in a press conference in early 2002.
The sexual abuse scandals in the Archdiocese of Boston led to nationwide outrage regarding practices which failed to protect children from abuse in the Catholic Church. In the spring of 2002, American cardinals met in Rome to discuss the matter, at which time Law offered his resignation, which was initially refused by the Vatican. Sexual abuse scandals broke in the media around the country, in a period which many now call the “Long Lent of 2002.”
In June 2002, the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops passed The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, known as the “Dallas Charter,” which established procedures and policies for addressing allegations of sexual abuse in the Church, and for fostering “safe environments” for children and other vulnerable individuals.
On December 6, 2002, Law was subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury, which was investigating possible criminal violations on behalf of Law and other diocesan officials in the abuse scandal. One week later, his resignation as Archbishop of Boston was accepted by the Vatican.
In September 2002, the Archdiocese of Boston reached a $10M settlement with 86 victims of Geoghan. In 2003, the Archdiocese of Boston agreed to pay $85M to 552 people who claimed to have been abused by Catholic clergy, many of them during Law’s tenure. The Archdiocese has continued to face litigation related to allegations of sexual abuse.
Law was not criminally charged for his involvement in the abuse scandal.
Two weeks ago, Law experienced a decline in health and was admitted to a clinic in Rome to monitor a congenital heart problem.
A few days ago, Law became unresponsive, and, according to reports, he passed away on Tuesday evening.
Funeral details will be made available later this week.
Law will be buried in a tomb at Rome’s Basilica of St Mary Major, which is customary for the priests who have served there.
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With the lead-in picture of the ring hand, reminds me of the “diamonds are forever” jingle; often seems more of a fantasy with earthly marriages.
“We cannot reduce a human situation to a prescriptive one” [Francis] translates the Roman Pontiff does not want the Church to be constricted by [to adhere to] doctrine. Whether Benedict XVI expressed an opinion [neither is an opinion a proscription] that a given number of marriages are invalid due to lack of faith that cannot be made an assumption that every divorced and remarried outside the Church falls into that category. If we accept that assumption on invalidity [Benedict’s alleged opinion] as a standard for judgment then that doubt must be presumed for all.
Pope Francis immediately after publication of Amoris Laetitia announced that most presumed sacramental marriages are invalid. Then walked it back following the expected uproar. That has been his gradual process of seeking to modify doctrine. Timing is essential.
A person unless retarded knows what an affirmation is [when exchanging vows]. If they don’t [due to lack of faith] they will likely remain as oblivious even if after a similar process of instruction they’re conferred the Holy Eucharist. Based on these premises this new document on divorced and remarried may well be footnote 351 on steroids.
Card Kevin Farrell, McCarrick associate when assigned to DC is one of the fast rising stars selected by His Holiness to complete the large tent Church renovation. Numbers versus quality, secular religiosity versus adherence to revelation. Unless I’m wrong and happily surprised.
“…without an annulment.” The easy-annulment mentality of the last fifty years has in effect amounted to being a Church endorsement for divorce. Oh, but annulments are NOT Catholic divorce, said Bishop James Conley in the Denver Catholic newspaper a decade ago or so. Sorry, bishop. they really are, in every way but officially. And every time the Church grants an annulment, it guarantees that there will be many more — the annulment mentality is part of the Church now. Thank you, New Springtime of Vatican II.
Yes!
This document like so many others emanating from this pontificate are DOA.
Excerpt: Pope Francis said. “When young people say ‘forever,’ who knows what they mean [by] ‘forever.’”
It is not just YOUNG people. My new wife and her maniacal first husband were divorced since she could no longer deal with his bipolar disorder. He died before I met Gail. I am a widower who lost my first wife at age 42. For 13 years I was single and alone. Then I met Gail and after a year we decided to get married. We were deeply in love and planned a lifetime together. That was when we experienced the harshness Catholic Church. Our parish priest would not marry us because Gail was divorced without an annulment. The fact that her first husband was now dead meant little. Across from St. Josephs was the Old Dutch Church where my friend Rev Paul Bennis was rector. After several “pre-cana” sessions he married us. We returned to St. Josephs, but were not given the Host. We have settled in and look forward to a long life.
When people get married, they are no longer free to take another partner, in other words, they are “reserved”. When Gail’s husband died, she was no longer “reserved”, and was free to marry for a second man. As for her civil divorce, I don’t know if she incurred any censure or canonical penalty. The remedy would have been a good confession with a knowledgeable priest. How could her parish priest refuse to marry her to a single man, and then refuse her Communion? As recounted by morganD, it seems altogether a bad decision. Another question: where was her bishop?
Marriage ends at death. It is unbelievable that a priest would claim a woman is not free to marry after for the sole reason that she is already married to a dead man.
“Practice continence within their marriage”??? Really?? Excuse me while i roll on the floor laughing. Who on earth does that?? There are a few anecdotal stories of some saintly couples in the long past supposedly doing that. But certainly that is beyond rare. Expect the report to approve of more secular practices for the divorced and remarried. To be kind and merciful of course, which appears to now trump standards if amy kind. And if the Pope assumes most catholic marriages are invalid, dispense with marriage as a sacrament and call in a govt justice of the peace. People are not improved when LESS is expected of them. Is the request for this report the popes way of distracting attention from the results of the recent German synod??? I think the tesults of this report will be sadly predictable.
Marriage is about the procreation and education of children for heaven. But in 1969, Rotal Judge Lucian Anne (accent over the “e”) proclaimed that from then on it was about much more as in a partnership of the whole of life.
But there is no list of how this partnership is defined. Couples can violate it in ignorance; only tribunal judges know how to find evidence that invalidates their marriage under, almost always, canon 1095.2 and 1095.3.
American diocesan marriage tribunals are corrupt. Ask those children who cried themselves to sleep for years, only wanting Mom and Dad back together. And the ” church” let them down again and again.
Using marriage as an indicator of anything relevant to the Church is useless. Casual sex, cohabiting, exploitation of children are rampant, and the wedding ceremony itself is given far more effort than the actual marriage. The truth is that the only one who can police Communion is Christ Himself.
I look forward to the day the Church implements our existing canon law and doctrine about those “having a failed marriage behind them.” The Church, not the government, has competence to decide spouses’ obligations toward each other and their children. No-fault divorce is virtually illegal for Catholics who are bound to follow canon law. For every so-called failed marriage there is one person (or two) who chose to break marriage promises by abandonment, abuse, or adultery. See my blog https://marysadvocates.org/please-stop-saying-those-who-experience-divorce/
Thank you for that post. My wife walked out of our marriage with no effort, no care, no apology, no remorse. She had committed adultery for several years and left for the other man. I would have done anything to save my marriage and took my vows seriously. She did not. Now I suffer as do my adult children.
70 testimonies of adult children of divorce is a must read in Primal Loss by Leila Miller for all clergy and lay Catholic counselors
I have so many questions about this. I was Catholic for almost 20 years, a convert as an adult. My first marriage was not in the church and he was abusive. My priest basically told me to leave him or I might die and he didn’t want to preach my funeral mass. I did, and we divorced. I got married again, once again not in the Church and we were married for 10 years. I had left the Church due to the marriage thing. After the 10 years, he announced he never loved me and he was in love with another woman and basically threw me out. I moved 800 miles away to my sister’s and went to the local church to talk about this and what to do about coming back. That priest told me to go home, throw her out, and tell my husband he had to stay with me. Uh, not happening, and I walked away from the church again.
A year and a half later I met a man who was perfect for me. We were in a whirlwind romance and after doing a handfasting with friends, got the JP ceremony. That was 30 years ago and we’re happier than we’ve ever been. He was divorced too, just getting over it. We worked through the baggage from our pasts and we have grown into a really comfortable, loving marriage.
Now I’m feeling the call to go home to the Church. I keep reading I have to get annulments, I have to live like “brother and sister” with my beloved husband while that’s going on. My first husband is dead, I’ve not had contact with the other one in about six years (at a wedding for our daughter). I don’t know what to do about this whole thing. If I can’t have sacraments, why go back? I can pray at home, I can read on my own. I can watch mass online.
My husband wouldn’t be adverse to conversion, depending on how he finds things. He grew up Methodist, very active since he played piano for the church and his father was a deacon and a lay minister. He has said he will accompany me to mass if I wanted to go.
So, when the Church talks about having to annul a marriage, if you’ve never been married in the Church, is that still valid? I’m very convused.