Bernard Francis Law

His Eminence Bernard Francis Law
Archpriest Emeritus of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore
See	Boston
Appointed	January 11, 1984
Installed	March 23, 1984
Term ended	December 13, 2002
Predecessor	Humberto Sousa Medeiros
Successor	Seán Patrick O'Malley
Other posts	Cardinal-Priest of Santa Susanna
Orders
Ordination	May 21, 1961 by Egidio Vagnozzi
Consecration	December 5, 1973 by Joseph Bernard Brunini
Created Cardinal	May 25, 1985 by John Paul II
Rank	Cardinal-Priest
Personal details
Born	(1931-11-04) November 4, 1931 Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico
Nationality	United States
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Previous post	Bishop of Springfield-Cape Girardeau (1973–1984) Archbishop of Boston (1984–2002)
Motto	To live is Christ
Coat of arms

Bernard Francis Law (born November 4, 1931) is an American cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the Archbishop emeritus of Boston, former archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, and Cardinal Priest of Santa Susanna, the American Catholic church in Rome.

Law was the Archbishop of Boston until his resignation on December 13, 2002,^[1] in response to the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal after church documents showed he had covered up sexual abuse committed by dozens of Catholic priests within his archdiocese.^[2] One priest alone was revealed to have raped or molested 130 children for decades while Law and other local officials moved him between churches rather than going to the authorities.^[2] Law orchestrated secret settlements for abuse claims made against at least seventy of his priests, in which families were paid to stay silent about the molestation and rape of their children.^[3]

Just two years after resigning from his position in Boston, which the Church called "an important step in the healing process",^[4] Pope John Paul II appointed Law as Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome in 2004. He resigned from this position upon reaching the age of 80 in November 2011.

Early life

Law was born in the Mexican city of Torreón, Coahuila, on November 4, 1931. He attended schools in New York, Florida, Georgia, and Barranquilla, Colombia, before graduating from Charlotte Amalie High School in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. While in high school he was employed by the Virgin Islands Daily News.

He graduated from Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts with a major in medieval history, before beginning philosophy studies at Saint Joseph Seminary College in St. Benedict, Louisiana, from 1953 to 1955, and then theological studies at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Worthington, Ohio, from 1955 to 1961.

On May 21, 1961, Law was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Natchez-Jackson in Mississippi. He served two years as an assistant pastor of St. Paul's Catholic Church in Vicksburg, and was made the editor of the Mississippi Register, the diocesan newspaper. He also held several other diocesan posts from 1963 to 1968, including director of the family life bureau and spiritual director of the minor seminary.

Civil rights activism

Law was a civil rights activist.^[5][6] He was a member of the Mississippi Leadership Conference and Mississippi Human Relations Council.^[6] For his civil rights activities and his strong positions on civil rights in the Mississippi Register, of which he was editor, he received death threats.^[6][7] The newspaper lost many subscribers for whom his civil rights stance was repugnant.^[7]

Charles Evers, activist and brother of Medgar Evers (activist assassinated in 1963), praised Law and said he acted "not for the Negro, but for justice and what is right."^[7]

Law's civil rights activity led him to develop ties with Protestant church leaders and he received national attention for his work for ecumenism^[7] and in 1968 he was tapped for his first national post, as executive director of the U.S. Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.^[7]

Bishop of Springfield-Cape Girardeau

Pope Paul VI named Law bishop of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau on October 22, 1973, and he was consecrated on December 5 of that year. Law's predecessor in Springfield-Cape Girardeau was William Wakefield Baum, another future cardinal.

In 1975, he made the news when he arranged for the resettlement in his diocese of one hundred and sixty-six Vietnamese refugees who had arrived in the United States, and who were members of a Vietnamese religious congregation, the Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix.

In continuing his ecumenical work, Law formed the Missouri Christian Leadership Conference. He was made a member of the Vatican's Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity and served from 1976 to 1981 as a consultor to its Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. In the late 1970s, Law would also chair the U.S. bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

In 1981, Law was named the Vatican delegate to develop and oversee a program instituted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in which U.S. Episcopal priests would be accepted into the Catholic priesthood. In the program's first year sixty-four Episcopal priests applied for acceptance. This brought married priests with their families into U.S. Roman Catholic dioceses for the first time.

Archbishop of Boston

Coat of arms of Cardinal Bernard Law, with his motto "To live is Christ", in front of Santa Susanna.

Styles of Bernard Francis Law
Reference style	His Eminence
Spoken style	Your Eminence
Informal style	Cardinal
See	Boston (Emeritus)

On January 11, 1984, Cardinal Law was appointed Archbishop of Boston, by Pope John Paul II. He was installed as Archbishop on March 23, 1984.

Only a little over a year later on May 25, 1985, he was elevated in consistory as a member of the College of Cardinals, where he was also appointed the Cardinal-Priest of the church of Santa Susanna.

His speech at the 1985 Synod of Bishops marking the 20th anniversary of the end of the Second Vatican Council led to development of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Law oversaw the first draft of the English translation.

In the mid-1980s, Law chaired the bishops' Committee on Pastoral Research and Practices at the time it distributed a major study report on Freemasonry. The bishops' report concluded that "the principles and basic rituals of Masonry embody a naturalistic religion, active participation in which is incompatible with Christian faith and practice."

In October 2012, former Irish President (and Catholic) Mary McAleese related that, on a state visit to the United States in 1998, she was publicly berated by Law for her stance on the ordination of women. The cardinal ushered McAleese and members of her delegation into a room to hear Mary Ann Glendon lecture them on the Church's views on women priests and a heated argument then took place. McAleese rebuked him with the statement that she was "the President of Ireland and not just of Catholic Ireland". Cardinals Desmond Connell of Dublin, Ireland and Cahal Daly of Armagh, Northern Ireland, UK condemned Law's action.^[8]

Knowledge of sexual abuse

Cardinal Law became the first high-level Church official to be accused of actively participating in the cover-up of child molestation.^[9]

In January 2001 Law was named a defendant in several low-profile cases involving pedophile priests, including one involving priest John Geoghan. The editor of the Boston Phoenix weekly, Susan Ryan-Vollmar, assigned reporter Kristen Lombardi to investigate. She wrote an article about the cases under the title "Cardinal sin".^[10] Mark Keane, a victim of Geoghan, believed that Law had direct knowledge that Geoghan, who worked in the Archdiocese of Boston from 1962 to 1993, was molesting children. He said that the archbishop not only let the priest continue working, but let him stay at parishes where he had daily contact with children, one of whom was Keane. New editor of the daily Boston Globe newspaper Martin Baron set the Spotlight team to work on the case in September 2001. Lombardi said that the Globe could have had the story before she did, but that the editorial staff were intimidated by the power of the Church, while Baron considered that the paper should dispute the sealing of court records.^[11]

Resignation as Archbishop of Boston

Law submitted his resignation as Archbishop of Boston to the Vatican some years before he turned 75 and would be expected to resign; Pope John Paul II accepted his resignation on December 13, 2002. In 2003 Sean O'Malley, O.F.M. Cap. was named Archbishop of Boston.

The Boston Globe said in an editorial the day after Law's resignation was accepted that "Law had become the central figure in a scandal of criminal abuse, denial, payoff, and coverup that resonates around the world". A letter urging Law's resignation had been signed by 58 priests, mostly diocesan priests who had sworn obedience to Law as their direct superior; the editorial said that this letter was "surely one of the precipitating events in his departure."^[12] The Globe's exposé of the scandal was the subject of a film, Spotlight, released in the US in November 2015, in which Law was portrayed by Len Cariou.

In a statement Law said, "It is my fervent prayer that this action [his resignation] may help the Archdiocese of Boston to experience the healing, reconciliation and unity which are so desperately needed. To all those who have suffered from my shortcomings and mistakes I both apologize and from them beg forgiveness."^[13] While no longer Archbishop of Boston he remains a bishop and cardinal of the Catholic Church; as a cardinal, he participated in the 2005 papal conclave.

Move to Rome

In December 2002, Law left Boston. It is often alleged^[14] that he left just hours before state troopers arrived with subpoenas seeking his grand jury testimony. When the state attorney general issued his report entitled Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston (July 23, 2003) he severely criticized Law mentioning that "the Archdiocese has shown an institutional reluctance to adequately address the problem and, in fact, made choices that allowed the abuse to continue" but did not allege that Law had tried to evade investigation and he did state that Law had not broken any laws because the law requiring abuse to be reported was not expanded to include priests until 2002.^[15]

In May 2004, John Paul II appointed Law to a post in Rome, as Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, an honorary position with ceremonial duties.^[16]

Law was a member of the Congregations for the Oriental Churches, the Clergy, Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Evangelisation of Peoples, Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Catholic Education, Bishops as well as the Pontifical Council for the Family. He held membership in all these congregations and of the council before resigning from the governance of the Archdiocese of Boston, and at that time was also a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture.^[17]

Law reached age 80 on November 4, 2011, and lost the right to participate in any papal conclave and on the same day he ceased to hold his various Curial memberships. He remained as archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore until November 21, 2011, when Archbishop Santos Abril y Castelló was appointed as the new archpriest.

In Rome, Law was considered an active and important conservative voice within many of the Vatican offices in which he served. It was reported that he believed he had been badly done by, and other cardinals saw him as a victim rather than a guilty party. He was a member of six of the nine or ten Vatican congregations, and was even more influential as, being based in Rome, he could attend all the meetings, unlike cardinals based in other countries.^[18]

Retirement

It was "commonly believed that [Law would] live out his retirement in Rome" when he was retired in 2011.^[19] After his resignation in 2011 Law lived in Vatican City, and attended all the annual 4 July Independence Day parties held by the US embassy to the Holy See. He was considered to have been an active and important conservative voice in many of the Vatican offices where he served.^[18]

In May 2012 MSNBC reported that Law was "the person in Rome most forcefully supporting" the Vatican response to Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori's petition to investigate the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a large group of American nuns.^[20]

As of March 2013, he was still living at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore.^[21] As of 2015, he was living in Palazzo della Cancelleria.^[22]

See also

• Catholic Church sexual abuse cases
• List of the Catholic bishops of the United States#American bishops serving outside the United States

References

Additional bibliography

• Bernard F. Law, Romanus Cessario, Mary Ann Glendon (2002). Boston's cardinal: Bernard Law, the man and his witness. Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-0341-8. 

External links

• Cardinal Bernard Law Biography
• The Boston Globe
• Information of the Press Office of the Holy See about Law

Archdiocese of Boston Ordinaries Bishops Jean-Louis Lefebvre de Cheverus Benedict Joseph Fenwick John Bernard Fitzpatrick Archbishops John Joseph Williams Cardinal William Henry O'Connell Cardinal Richard Cushing Cardinal Humberto Sousa Medeiros Cardinal Bernard Francis Law Cardinal Seán Patrick O'Malley Auxiliary Bishops John Anthony Dooher Walter James Edyvean Robert Francis Hennessey Arthur Kennedy Peter John Uglietto Churches Cathedral Cathedral of the Holy Cross Basilica Basilica and Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (The Mission Church) Parishes Holy Trinity Parish, Lowell Our Lady of Czestochowa Parish, Boston St. John the Baptist Parish, Salem St. Mary's Church, Dedham St. Mary's Church, Waltham St. Mary's Church, Winchester St. Stanislaus Bishop & Martyr's Parish, Chelsea Education Seminaries Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary St. John's Seminary Colleges Boston College Emmanuel College Labouré College Marian Court College Merrimack College Regis College St. John's Seminary High Schools Academy of Notre Dame, Tyngsboro Archbishop Williams High School, Braintree Arlington Catholic High School, Arlington Austin Preparatory School, Reading Bishop Fenwick High School, Peabody Boston College High School, Dorchester Cardinal Spellman High School, Brockton Cathedral High School, Boston Catholic Memorial High School, West Roxbury Central Catholic High School, Lawrence Cristo Rey Boston High School, Dorchester Elizabeth Seton Academy, Boston Fontbonne Academy, Milton Lowell Catholic High School, Lowell Malden Catholic High School, Malden Marian High School Framingham Matignon High School, Cambridge Mount Alvernia High School, Newton Mount Saint Joseph Academy, Boston Nazareth Academy, Wakefield Newton Country Day School, Newton Notre Dame Academy, Hingham Notre Dame High School, Lawrence Pope John XXIII High School, Everett Presentation of Mary Academy, Methuen Sacred Heart High School, Kingston Saint Clement High School, Medford St. John's Preparatory School, Danvers St. Mary's High School, Lynn Saint Sebastian's School, Needham Ursuline Academy, Dedham Xaverian Brothers High School, Westwood Catholicism Portal

Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield–Cape Girardeau Bishops Charles Herman Helmsing Ignatius Jerome Strecker William Wakefield Baum Bernard Francis Law John Joseph Leibrecht James Vann Johnston, Jr. Churches Cathedrals St. Agnes Cathedral Cathedral of St. Mary of the Annunciation Parishes St. Vincent De Paul Church, Cape Girardeau St. Peter the Apostle Church, Joplin Education High schools McAuley Catholic High School, Joplin Notre Dame High School, Cape Girardeau Springfield Catholic High School, Springfield Catholicism Portal