Cardinal Law never molested anyone, so he couldn't have been arrested, tried, or convicted of a crime. Therefore, he shouldn't have been 'defrocked', because he never committed a crime. Even after his extensive testimony, in which he accepted responsibility for not being more responsive to the matters, which were actually handled by his Auxiliary Bishops, there was never any legal accusation against him.
The District Attorney was HOPING there would be something with which to charge Cardinal Law, and he even stated plainly, after the hearings, that he wished he could have found something. THAT tells me that they this was planned to be a media circus that would damage the credibility of the Church when speaking on other issues, most specifically homosexual marriage, which was making its way up to the Supreme Judicial Court. The Church was the most outspoken opponent to homosexual marriage, but after the abuse scandal broke, any statement the Church made was accompanied by a comment about the priest abuse, so credibility WAS lost.
Cardinal Law resigned, and, if I'm not mistaken, he is the ONLY Bishop, Archbishop or Cardinal in charge of a Diocese that has had these cases, who HAS resigned. He was in the States for over a year before being reassigned to Rome
What Cardinal Law did was look the other way. He new crimes were taking place and innocent children were being raped and he did nothing. From the evidence I saw he did not care. Some leader he was. The church certainly has a low threshold for defrocking. The media didn’t create this mess.
Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angelos recently resigned. Cardinal Seán Brady of Ireland will be resigning soon.