Cardinal Law Offers Resignation/ Awaits Pope's Acceptance

Political, mostly.

Child molesting by priests is centuries old, and the Vatican knows that. Now it's totally unacceptable, politically, and damages the church as an institution.

Same thing happened with castration of child singers. It was always morally wrong, but stopped only after it was socially unacceptable.

I am absolutely shocked at how many pedophile priests there are out there and those are just the ones we know about. This all should have always been unacceptable by all parties and for anyone to cover it up is a criminal themselves.

(Great avatar, Boss . . . )

As a lapsed catholic (to say the least), i would add that the "Church" has been in politics up to it's collective eyeballs since Constantine acquiesed to his shrewish wife and mother-in-law and made it the state religion of the Roman empire . . .

Anyone who would contend that this pope is not political must either be afflicted with an incredibly short memory, or illiterate . . .

I hope that Law goes to trial over his part in this mess.
Although I don't know that a jury would send him to any kind of standard prison.

From what I've read, here in the hotbed of church scandle, is that the fear was of open public controversy over any kind of moral concerns as the motivation for cover-up. The dealings of the higher ups seem to be political to me, so much so as to seem obviously political.

He may or may not be an accessory after the fact. Betcha anything you like that Law is never indicted.

Jes- Oh, I absolutely agree. Law will never see the inside of a prison. The fact remains though, that he certainly deserves some hard time in the pokey!

The true absurdity in all this is the prohibition of marriage by priests. There are many sincere believers out there who would be willing to fill the depleted ranks of the priesthood were the celibacy clause lifted . . . what an idiotic concept . . . sigh . . . i do feel some twisted sense of gratitude to the ould Church for being so far beyond reality that it lead me to question religion from a very early age . . .

and "hard" time is exactly what he'd get if he ever got inside . . . cons have their own mutated sense of right and wrong, and anyone in for "sexual perversion" becomes a target . . .

Update- the Pope has accepted the Cardinal's resignation:


Link to Article About Cardinal Law's Resignation


Does anybody know what happens to a resigned Cardinal? Does he get a "golden parachute"? Does he go back to being a parish priest, or does he simply retire? Interesting!

Gold parachute, gold Jaguar, gold watch, bank acct filled with gold.

Phoenix, You beat me to it! I was planning to post the news of Cardinal Law's resignation. Oh well, I guess A2K is too fast with current news events, and that's a good thing. c.i.

Law it would seem is taking the rap for a crime committed by the Catholic Church for centuries. It seems very odd that all eyes are focused on the American Catholic church. My question is isn't the same crime being committed in parishes around the world?

au1929, I'd guess it is world-wide to a degree. Good point.

It's a worldwide phenomenon.
Every country puts an emphasis on their own corrupted clergy.
The US gets more attention because of the power of the American owned media.
In Spain and Latin America, the big culprit is the Legion of Christ, a congregation specialized in founding and administrating expensive Catholic schools for boys. Even the Legion's founder, Marcial Maciel, is being accused of child molesting.

I wonder what percentage of catholics have left the church since this media blitz? c.i.

Law is a bit of a scapegoat but it's largely of his own making. He downplayed the whole thing hoping it would go away and it didn't. Now he's the fall guy and he should be IMO.

There have been accusations and arrests of ministers from other religions in the US in the last year too but those stories have been over-run by the story in the Catholic church. The Boston Globe got it's knickers in a twist over this story and they've held firm in not letting it go. The press in other areas either isn't looking as hard or isn't willing to buck the establishment.

C.I., this is from a discussion board in the Republic of Ireland, an overwhelmingly Catholic nation:



I acknowledge that on-line discussions are not the province of poor people, and that there is, therefore, a certain slant in terms of income and education from those posting. Nonetheless, i'm sure it does the church no good to lose such people . . .

Law is not being scapegoated.

He has been an accessory to pedophilia multiple times by quietly moving perps from locations where their activities become known to new locations where they could victimize more children. The papers recently forced from the archdiocesan archives by court order have revealed that even since the scandal broke 11 months ago Law had continued to lie about what he knew and what he did.

Catholics in the Boston archdiosese tend to be conservative and deeply deferential to the church, yet a recent survey of local catholics revealed that 94% wanted Law to resign.

Re the statements that pedophilia is 'centuries old' and 'world-wide' in the church:

True enough, and hurrah for Boston for being in the forefront of the effort to clean the Augean Stables and make the church into what it has always held itself out to be!

According to fishin, he seems to think Law is a scapegoat. I must disagree on this point, because Law was responsible for sheltering law breakers, but specifically child molesters. Law had the responsibility to protect the children. He did not. He is a criminal in every meaning of the word. c.i.