A Steady Ascent, an Abrupt Fall

He was friendly and approachable, looked like a Boston Irishman, and had the local ties that come with a Harvard degree.

When Bernard Law became archbishop of Boston in 1984, he was immediately a favorite of local Roman Catholics. For his part, Law proclaimed: “After Boston, there’s only heaven.”

Nearly 19 years later, Law has stepped down in disgrace, abandoned by priests under his charge and vilified by the public that once hailed him.

His resignation Friday completes the wrenching fall of a man who ascended from small-town parishes to one of the most influential posts in all of U.S. Catholicism. Instead of being known for his extensive work with the poor or extensive influence with the church, Law may be saddled with a different legacy: his apparent failure to protect the archdiocese’s children from rogue priests.

“It’s very saddening, not only for what he did to himself, but what it did to the church in Boston,” said Philip Lawler, former editor of the Boston Archdiocese’s official newspaper, the Pilot.

Law was born in Torreon, Mexico, the only child of an Air Force colonel. He was educated in North America, South America and the Virgin Islands before graduating from Harvard in 1953 with a degree in medieval history.

He was ordained a priest in 1961, and became so involved in civil rights work in Mississippi that his name appeared on a hit list compiled by segregationists.

His rise to national prominence began in 1968, when he took a job at the ecumenical office of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The position allowed him to establish numerous influential contacts with bishops and diocesan leaders around the country.

He became bishop in the Springfield-Cape Girardeau diocese in Missouri in 1973, then became archbishop of Boston in 1984 and was elevated to cardinal in 1985.

Law’s concern for immigrants and minorities made him enormously popular in those communities from the start, and he received support from them even in the scandal’s worst days.

But Father Bernard McLaughlin, a frequent critic of Law, said the cardinal never connected with the common person. McLaughlin blamed Law’s ambition for blinding him to the devastating problems in his archdiocese.

“His gaze was on someplace else, the horizon,” McLaughlin said. “There was not that connection with the people, and in the end, that hurt him.”

Law has been active in the pope’s Congregation of Bishops, which chooses bishops. He was the foreign policy architect at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and made headlines with a 1998 trip to Cuba to prop up the Catholic Church.

Where Law will go now that his resignation has been accepted is unclear. He remains a cardinal, which means he retains the right to vote in a papal election and could move into another post.