Pressure Is on Cardinal to Resign

With outrage mounting among his followers, Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law came under increasing pressure to resign Thursday over disclosures that he had protected pedophile priests at the expense of his parishioners.

Around the country and the world, e-mails were flying among church officials about the future of America’s highest-ranking prelate. Boston’s two daily newspapers have called on Law to step down. The city’s boisterous talk radio was buzzing with little beyond demands for the cardinal to quit. Two candidates for governor of Massachusetts--a Catholic and a Jew--have added their voices to the chorus.

But as Law has dug his heels in--remaining entrenched Thursday in his mansion here--even his closest advisors, the titans of Boston’s close-knit business community, began falling away.

“It’s time,” said former Lt. Gov. Thomas P. O’Neill III, a business consultant and the grandson of the late speaker of the House. “The healing has got to begin. His staying in place puts all that off.”

Law’s reluctance to become the first U.S. cardinal ever to resign--worldwide, only a handful of cardinals has stepped down in recent memory--comes at a time when the church is under fire for failing to act as scores of pedophile priests apparently operated freely for decades. In Boston, Law now is widely viewed as a shepherd who did not protect his flock.

The sexual abuse scandal exploded in January, when the Boston Globe obtained documents proving that the Boston archdiocese knew for years that Father John Geoghan was molesting children. (He is now in prison.) Soon parishes worldwide were reeling amid reports of abuses long covered up that had come into the open.

The coup de grace for the Boston archdiocese and its besieged cardinal came Monday, when evidence surfaced that Law had approved the transfer of a pedophile priest, Father Paul Shanley, from Boston to California.

One of his alleged victims, 55-year-old Arthur Austin, took aim at Law for sheltering a predator without “a crumb of compassion” for those who were injured. “You are a liar,” Austin said. “Your own documents condemn you.”

At the archdiocese here, spokeswoman Donna M. Morrissey did not respond to a request for an interview with Law.

The cardinal, said Eugene Kennedy--a former priest and professor emeritus at Chicago’s Loyola University who has studied pedophilia in the priesthood--once was “the most influential person in the American Catholic Church.” But now, Kennedy said, “he has lost his moral authority.”

The 70-year-old Law was born in Torreon, Mexico, the child of a U.S. Army colonel. Ordained in 1961, he plunged into civil rights work in Mississippi so wholeheartedly that his name showed up on a hit list issued by local segregationists.

His social progressivism continued as he took over in 1973 as bishop in the diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Mo. He opened soup kitchens, welcomed refugee priests from Vietnam, reached out to other denominations--and began a methodical ascent in Catholic hierarchy.

“I have known him for years,” Kennedy said. “He was always highly regarded. But everyone knew he was ambitious. He made no secrets in pursuing his goals. He became powerful because he understood that in order to do so, he had to accede to the pope in every way.”

In Catholic circles, said Tom Roberts, editor of the National Catholic Reporter--an independent news weekly in Kansas City, Mo.--”Law is what would be considered a kingmaker. . . . He really has carried an enormous amount of water for Rome.”

Law took over in Boston in 1984 with a mandate to enforce a tough, conservative Vatican party line. He was elevated to cardinal in 1985, and established himself as a major force in a city where Catholics dominate the top ranks of business and politics.

Lawyers, financiers and tycoons from real estate and construction frequented Law’s mansion near Boston College for private dinners, where such social issues as affordable housing or community policing often were topics of the hour. Many of those who came to form Law’s inner circle were drawn by the cardinal’s forceful opposition to abortion and birth control and by his crackdown on “cafeteria Catholics”--those who shop around for morsels of doctrine they find acceptable.

Savvy, mediagenic and progressive in his support of the region’s black and Latino communities, Law became a powerful player in Boston--a convener, catalyst and moral leader.

But in recent weeks, support from Law’s inner circle began to falter. Last month, advertising czar Jack Connors informed the cardinal via a quote in the Globe that he would no longer offer his advice. The cardinal called Connors into his office at the chancery to rebuke him.

On March 13, the Boston Herald called for Law’s resignation in an editorial. The Globe followed suit on Tuesday--the day after the Shanley revelations. Over the last three months, the Globe wrote, “the community had hoped that Law could lead the church through this crisis. But now he is trapped.” The editorial concluded: “Cardinal Law should resign.”

Day by day, more of Law’s backers have defected. Democratic state Sen. Warren Tolman, a candidate for governor, on Tuesday declared: “As a churchgoing Catholic and father of three, I reluctantly conclude that Cardinal Law should not continue to lead the archdiocese of Boston.”

Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich, another Democratic gubernatorial aspirant, also pressed for Law’s resignation.

“As the father of two sons, who wants nothing more in the world than to protect them from harm, I’ve come to the conclusion that this scandal goes beyond church matters,” said Reich, who is Jewish. “If the abuse occurred at a day-care center, or an elementary school . . . the person in charge who covered it up would have been fired and punished. This isn’t about religion--it’s about a leader and an administrator who fundamentally failed in his duties.”

In a poll released Thursday by Quinnipiac University, 60% of Massachusetts’ Catholics surveyed said Law should resign.

Under Law’s watch, the archdiocese’s coffers ballooned. In December, he set a goal of $300 million for the 2002 cardinal’s fund drive.

But this week, wealthy Catholics here realized the extent of Law’s problems when the archdiocese abruptly canceled the cardinal’s annual spring garden party. The event was an institution, last year raising $1.4 million for local charities.

The archdiocese on Thursday also informed members of a committee on child protection that Law had appointed in the wake of the Geoghan case that its first scheduled meeting on Saturday would not be held, as planned, at the cardinal’s residence.

In January, Law made a point of apologizing for the abuses committed by Geoghan. But in recent weeks, he has portrayed himself as something of a victim.

“I personally have these past weeks experienced closeness to Jesus on the cross that I never have before in my life,” he said.

The test of faith in Boston by no means has been limited to the cardinal.

“Ordinary Catholics in Boston know that there is a terrible crisis,” Kennedy said. “But they know that this is not a crisis in the church they believe in. They retain their faith in that. . . . This is a crisis in the organizational church, and they have lost their belief in that. They have kept their faith, but lost their confidence.”

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