Breaking News - Boston's Cardinal Law Offers His Resignation

Fox News | 12/12/02 | Fox News

[livius]

DO think the archdiocese of LA can get anything for that monstrocity he built?

LOL! Maybe if they took up a subscription to destroy it - you know, sort of a reverse building fund...

[RobbyS]

Remember Aesop's fable of the Frogs and the Stork? VOTF may soon be wishing they had King Log back.

[Loyalist]

That dissident priest, Walter Cuenin, deserved to be censured and should be dismissed from the priesthood. He is an advocate for, amongst other things, same-sex marriage.

Advocacy of homosexual rights and membership in organizations advocating them should be prima facie grounds for suspicion of any priest.

All the priests associated with Dignity should be investigated by Church authorities, and turned over to prosecutors if sufficient evidence of possible criminal activity is discovered.

[babygene]

"But since these crimes are state issues and not federal ones"

Actually, enabling a known felon to cross state lines to avoid prosecution is a federal crime. I believe that case could be made.

[Aliska]

This ugly mess needs to be dealt with, but I don't think
people should rejoice over his downfall as some on both
sides seem to be doing. We are warned in scripture not to
do that. But I don't remember where. I know it is there. Somewhere.

[xzins]

The report also says he did the same thing the first time he went to see the Pope. The Pope turned him down that time. This time, though, insiders are saying the Pope will accept the resignation.

I think the subpoena awaiting Law in Boston might just have Law in Rome on a long sabbatical. Which is perhaps why the Pope will accept this.

Any bets? Will Law return to Boston if the Pope accepts his resignation?

[Lael]

And California is lifting the statute of limitations of sexual misconduct, etc., for one year, starting next year.

In Arizona, there was never a 'Statute of Limitations' on this sort of thing.

Look, the Bishop is trying to 'buy his way out of Hell' with a brokered IMMUNITY DEAL after threatening the County Attorney...which County Attorney held a press conference to discuss the threats.

Maybe you can threaten DA's in Mass. or LA, but don't try that in pistol packing Arizona!

[Campion]

Will Law return to Boston if the Pope accepts his resignation?

I absolutely hope so. Not even Law should be above the law. (To coin a phrase.)

[livius]

Will Law return to Boston if the Pope accepts his resignation?

I'd be really, really surprised if he did. I think it's time for his job licking stamps in the Vatican post office. But that's probably better than going to jail.

[polemikos]

Boston's Law Has Not Yet Formally Offered to Quit
2 minutes ago - Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Boston's embattled Cardinal Bernard Law has discussed his possible resignation with Vatican (news - web sites) officials but has not yet formally offered it to Pope John Paul (news - web sites), Vatican sources said on Thursday.



The sources said the topic had come up in meetings Law has had in the Vatican since he arrived last weekend. Law is under intense pressure to quit over a clergy sexual abuse scandal in his archdiocese.


But a Vatican spokesman said Law had not yet had talks with the pope, to whom he would have to hand in his resignation if he chose to quit. He offered his resignation to the pope last April but it was rejected.


"Cardinal Law has not yet seen the pope," chief spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told Reuters. He was responding to a U.S. television report that Law had offered to resign.


The spokesman said Church regulations required that a prelate offer his resignation directly to the pope. Law is expected to see the pope on Friday.


Law slipped out of Boston last Friday to fly to the Vatican amid calls for his resignation from his own priests and angry parishioners, following revelations that he and other church leaders shuttled clergymen accused of pedophilia from parish to parish.


He was served a subpoena that same day to appear before a Massachusetts grand jury investigating sex abuse by priests, Boston sources familiar with the probe said on Thursday.


Angry protesters have urged criminal indictments against Law and his former top associates, and at least 58 Boston-area priests asked Law to step down in a letter delivered to his residence earlier this week.


CRISIS TALKS


The senior U.S. prelate has had talks with top Vatican officials all week about his future and plans for the archdiocese to declare bankruptcy as a way of dealing with some 450 clergy sexual abuse lawsuits.


Word of the subpoenas came after Voice of the Faithful, a Catholic lay group with more than 25,000 members, joined dozens of Law's own priests in calling for his ouster.

Church sources have said the Vatican is considering naming a special administrator to run the Boston archdiocese if and when Law resigns.

The administrator would govern the archdiocese in the pope's name until Law's successor as archbishop was named.

Church sources pointed out, however, that in the case of Boston, the administrator may be given extra powers to run the troubled diocese until a new bishop has been named.

They said the appointment of an Apostolic Administrator would be the most likely scenario in Boston but did not rule out two other possibilities.

One was that Law would resign and that the pope would appoint his successor quickly.

The other would be to take the unusual step of naming a successor, known as a "coadjutor," even before Law resigned.

Church law allows a coadjutor, who has automatic right of succession, to deal with "certain personal problems experienced by the diocesan bishop" in special cases.

The scandal erupted earlier this year when files in the case of defrocked priest and convicted pedophile John Geoghan showed that Law knew of accusations against him but instead chose to transfer him from parish to parish without warning parents.

[saradippity]

I am thinking that the Pope may not accept his resignation and if that happens,I will be grateful. It is apparent from reading the posts since last January that most people are still quite in the dark about everything surrounding this "scandal". The only way to open more and more people's eyes is to have their attention riveted. But it has to be riveted for the Truth,as yet most people don't have much of a clue.And,furthermore most of the truth is still deeply buried,more time without upheaval,I hope. However,if the Pope accepts it, I will know that there are some things I don't know either.LOL

There was a murder of a pastor in Cleveland over the week-end, a seminarian who was being removed is the alleged perp. There is a relative silence on the issue,I think there is something there that is very,very important. No one is posting on the thread.

[Lael]

The only way to open more and more people's eyes is to have their attention riveted.

I hope that some of these lawsuits include a RICO claim.

RICO eases the burden of proof.

A number of investors were swindled out of several million dollars in a Gold Scam at the WEST COAST Bank in Encino, California in the early 1980's.

A jury in LA, found as a matter of fact, that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (thats right, kids, the FDIC) was a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization with respect to the West Coast Bank.

Investors recovered tens of million$ from the FDIC!!

Find the $moking Gun, and nail Law's co-conspirators with RICO...Just how much is Vatican City worth on the Real Estate market???

[PLK]

The documents follow the recent release of thousands of pages of archdiocese personnel files containing allegations that, in addition to molesting young boys, some priests abused drugs and had illicit affairs.

These two things do not even belong in the same paragraph as the homosexual molestations. Priests have been having affairs with women since the vows of celibacy became a requirement of the church. Not even newsworthy. The drug charge? I don't know, what was it? Too many glasses of Irish whiskey before mass. BFD.

The press only throw that stuff in there to further the homo agenda of "normalizing" their aberrant behavior. It is SO obvious.

[Renatus]

He may tell them to get off church property, but VOTF, after this, will be stronger than ever.

They may be but they do not make up the magisterium. They have no power to govern. Jesus was very wise when He established the Church on the apostles. The quicker VOTF dies out the better off Christ's Church will be. I suggest that they "cool it." The Holy Spirit is still in Church of the Church and He has a way of taking care of such groups.

[Renatus]

Priests have been having affairs with women since the vows of celibacy became a requirement of the church.

Prove it. You been window peeking?

[stands2reason]

I'm gaining the impression you think Cardinal Law should stay in power. Why do you think that way?

[PLK]

I didn't mean to imply that it's common or widespread. But it has happened and does happen and will continue to happen. Surely you would not deny that.

But an affair between a consenting man and woman should not be thought an appropriate topic to place in the same paragraph as a discussion of the crime of sodomizing young men. You have to agree with that?

[uncbob]

Here's to hoping Boston gets somebody orthodox, conservative and willing to tell VOTF to take a hike.

And starts by putting it to Teddy and all the other abortion loving Catholic politicians

[Aquinasfan]

Here's to hoping Boston gets somebody orthodox, conservative and willing to tell VOTF to take a hike.

The rise of para-Church organizations is an ominous development which could easily lead to schism, but Law's behavior and decades of poor catechesis are to blame for this.

[Aquinasfan]

Those priests would not have written that letter if they weren't ashamed and afraid to walk down the street for fear of being spit on.

A seminarian friend of mine wears his collar around Boston. He says he's been treated with nothing but respect.

The VOTF is the voice of the heretics. Their leadership is composed of the usual dissenters. A "democratic," para-church organization which seeks to bully the bishops in setting Church policy is not a Catholic organization, IMO.