Well, it’s not like you can blame him. After all, he’s a busy man. An archdiocese to run. Contributors to schmooze. Oh, and a Mass or two to perform. Why would anyone expect a busy man like Cardinal Law to take time to follow up with his aides about one of his priests who had been accused of abuse?
And when his aides told him it was okay to transfer the guy, well, why would Cardinal Law ever think to question that? After all, a Prince of the Church doubtless surrounds himself with the best advisors he can find, just so that he can rely on their advice. Clearly that’s his main responsibility.
Those pesky letters complaining about the handling of the case, including one from one of his own bishops? Nope, don’t remember that. Probably opened and filed by one of his helpful assistants. No, wait, those are his initials and note on the envelope, forwarding the matter on to one of his aids. Well, must’ve let that one slip through the cracks.
Yeesh.
So we have one of two possibilities.
First possiblity, the man is lying through his teeth, either out of a misguided desire to try to protect the church, or to protect his own soon-to-have-diplomatic-immunity skin.
Or second, the guys is so out of touch, so insulated by bad advisors, so forgetful of such critical pastoral matters as to neither remember receiving letters nor having remembered to follow up on them, despite repeated complaints … that we ought to have pity on the gent, protest any move by the Vatican to give him a senior role there, and ask him to quietly step down.
Certainly, either way, the members of the Archdiocese of Boston can’t be asked to lend any credence to his bold promises to reform matters in a diligent and forthright fashion.
He’s already shown he can’t. Or won’t.