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<p>BOSTON — The Boston Archdiocese is considering bankruptcy as it faces potentially crippling financial settlements with victims of priest sex abuse -- an option experts say could produce more bad publicity than it's worth.</p> <p>Such a move would also put the Roman Catholic Church in the position of giving control over some of its finances to a secular bankruptcy court.</p>

TORONTO - Catholics should boycott homosexual-union ceremonies because attending them would lend support to unnatural relationships, Bernard Cardinal Law said yesterday. "For us to give public recognition of that in any way is to confirm a pattern of living that is not ordained by God," Law told about 500 Boston-area pilgrims at a catechism session associated with World Youth Day. He addressed the topic in response to a question about how Catholics should abide by the church's guidance to love homosexuals while opposing same-sex relationships. "The general principle is we are called to love and accept every human being," Law...

The relentless flogging of the Catholic Church is beginning to beg the question: Who or what will determine when this miserable story has finally run its course? It's obviously transcended the events that triggered it, providing a forum for malcontents who've been angry at the Church for years, long before they ever heard of James Porter and John Geoghan. Listen to their rants - ordination of women, acceptance of homosexuality - and ask yourself what any of that has to do with the betrayal of a young person's trust?The young Malcolm X coined a motto, ``By any means necessary,'' that...

<p>Bishop Gerald Barnes of the Diocese of San Bernardino said Wednesday he plans to ask Boston Cardinal Bernard Law to apologize for knowingly transferring an accused child molester to the local diocese in 1990.</p> <p>Barnes is calling for a one-on-one meeting, which could take place as early as today during a historic conference of American Catholic Bishops in Dallas.</p>

<p>Under pressure, Cardinal Bernard F. Law implemented so-called zero tolerance and mandatory reporting policies for sexually abusive priests earlier this year, but a group of specialists on sexual abuse who met with Law in 1993 at his invitation say he dismissed advice they gave him then to adopt such measures.</p>

JACKSON, Miss. – A day after Bernard Cardinal Law’s admission that he allowed a priest accused of child sexual abuse to remain at a parish here 30 years ago, a second Mississippi priest has been identified as an alleged molester whose activities also went unchecked by Law. The Rev. Thomas Boyce molested children at St. Peter’s Parish in the early 1970s, lawyers handling cases against the priest and the Catholic Church said yesterday. Boyce served alongside the Rev. George L. Broussard, another alleged abuser whom Law was warned about but did not immediately remove from St. Peter’s, the Cardinal admitted...

BOSTON- Cardinal Bernard Law denied allegations he ignored claims of abuse by the Rev. Paul Shanley, saying in a letter to parishioners that he did not learn until 1993 that the priest was accused of molesting boys. Law rescinded Shanley's authorization to be a parish priest in San Bernadino, Calif., after learning of the abuse allegations, the cardinal wrote in a letter distributed on Pentecost Sunday. He said he was not aware of allegations against Shanley dating to the 1960s until a few months ago. The archdiocese faces civil suits alleging it knew of those allegations before it assigned Shanley...

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Cardinal Law, repeat after me: ``To the best of my present recollection . . .'' It's very important for you to remember that phrase this morning at the deposition, Your Eminence. Note that you don't say ``recollection,'' you say ``present recollection'' - that extra adjective gives you just a bit more wiggle room, should some inconvenient document or witness turn up later. That ``present'' could allow you later to, ahem, amend your earlier testimony, should it prove - you'll pardon the expression - perjurious. Poor Cardinal Law. As the 71-year-old archbishop does the perp walk for the very first time...

BOSTON (AP) - Faced with hundreds of potential litigants, Boston's Roman Catholic archdiocese is contemplating mortgaging or even selling its headquarters to pay the rising toll of its priest abuse scandal. Lawyers and alleged victims have called on the archdiocese to sell or mortgage the property since it backed out of a settlement with 86 plaintiffs in a civil suit against defrocked priest John Geoghan. The archdiocese's Finance Council on Friday rejected the settlement because of a concern about the growing number of victims and the church's diminishing resources. The deal would have paid plaintiffs between $15 million and...

The Archdiocese of Boston abruptly backed out of a settlement agreement with 86 people who have accused now-defrocked priest John Geoghan of child molestion,saying Friday that the deal would strip it of too many resources. Rejecting Cardinal Bernard Law's request to sign the deal, the archdicese's finance council refused to fund the agreement,estimated to be worth $15 million to $30 million.

A lawyer seeking to depose Bernard Cardinal Law in a sexual abuse case later this month petitioned a court yesterday for a temporary restraining order to impound his passport, calling the embattled prelate a potential flight risk who could be whisked away to Rome to avoid giving sworn testimony. Houston and Bay State attorney Daniel J. Shea, who represents former Catholic Memorial High School hockey player David Carney, asked Suffolk Superior Court Judge Maria Lopez to bar Law from traveling to the Vatican before the May 29 deposition. ``He already left the jurisdiction surreptitiously once to go to Rome,''...

IT SHOULD NEVER have come to this. Indeed, it should never have come to anything at all. Had Cardinal Bernard Law and other leaders of the Boston Archdiocese been even remotely concerned about the welfare of the children in their flock, they would have found ways to protect them from pedophile priests. But the record shows that Law, and certainly others under him, went to great lengths to shield their “brother” priests from public scrutiny, with no regard for the victims. Law has been given more than ample time to rectify the situation. Yet his actions have done nothing but...

Laity group demands voice: In Lowell, pastor snubs diocesan fund drive by Tom Mashberg and Eric Convey Tuesday, April 30, 2002 Nearly 500 mainstream Catholics demanding a major voice for the laity in church affairs met last night to say they would organize locally and nationally despite a recent letter from the Archdiocese of Boston urging ``the faithful'' not to question church directives. The meeting of The Voice of the Faithful group, at St. John the Evangelist Church in Wellesley, came as a small mutiny broke out in Lowell. The pastor of St. Michael's Parish urged his congregants to shun...

BOSTON - Cardinal Bernard F. Law has asserted that "negligence" by a boy and his parents contributed to alleged sexual abuse by a priest in Law's Catholic diocese. Law's claim, filed in court by his attorneys, came in his first legal response to allegations that the Rev. Paul R. Shanley began molesting a Newton boy when the boy was 6 years old. The cardinal's claim is boilerplate legal defense language. But a lawyer who is not involved in the case and has handled other cases involving allegations of clergy sex abuse said Sunday night that the decision to use such...

BOSTON -- Cardinal Bernard F. Law, in documents filed by his attorney, said "negligence" by a then 6-year-old boy and his parents contributed to alleged sexual abuse of the child by a priest. A copy of Law’s legal response, filed in Middlesex Superior Court earlier this month, was provided to The Boston Globe by Roderick MacLeish Jr., who is representing the Fords. MacLeish, who is scheduled to take Law’s deposition on June 5, said he found the claim by the cardinal to be "appalling." "There is no set of circumstances under which a 6-year-old child could be blamed for something...

<p>The cardinal's claim, filed in court by his attorneys, is boilerplate legal defense language. But a lawyer who is not involved in the case and has handled other cases involving allegations of clergy sex abuse said last night that the decision to use such a claim in so sensitive a case showed poor judgment.</p>

<p>PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Beleaguered Boston Cardinal Bernard Law denied a published report Friday that he would be leaving Boston and taking an assignment at the Vatican in the wake of the child sex abuse scandal involving priests in the United States.</p>

An alleged victim says he was abused for years. A Boston priest at the heart of a sex abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church taught children how to inject drugs, his diary has revealed. Reverend Paul Shanley, who was involved with the North American Man Boy Love Association which promotes sex between men and children, also suffered from sexually transmitted diseases, he wrote. Personal papers and other documents relating to Mr Shanley have been discovered by the Boston archdiocese and handed to lawyers suing the Church on behalf of an alleged victim of molestation. Revelations about...

PHILADELPHIA - Embattled Boston archbishop Bernard Cardinal Law, under siege from the epic sex scandal threatening his 18-year legacy, will likely be replaced and sent to the Vatican by the beginning of June, according to sources. Law, who arrived in Newark, N.J., yesterday after the historic two-day conclave of American cardinals at the Vatican, will be reassigned by Pope John Paul II to an as-yet determined position prior to a scheduled deposition of Law in a legal suit against the archdiocese, according to church officials. ``There will be a promotion by June at the latest,'' said one source. ``They...