Pope’s funeral blessing for sex abuse cardinal
Victims’ fury at send-off
POPE Francis sparked fury yesterday after giving the final blessing at the funeral of a cardinal embroiled in a child sex abuse scandal.
Bernard Law, who died this week in Rome aged 86, covered up systematic assaults by scores of priests in the US city of Boston.
Victim Robert Costello was outraged at the cardinal’s Vatican funeral.
The 56-year-old, who claimed Law covered up for a Catholic cleric he was abused by, said: “Chop him up and put weights on every part of his body and drop them in the oceans.
DISGRACE
“There’s not a single day that goes by that I don’t remember what happened to me.”
The Vatican said it was protocol for the Pope to give the blessing at a cardinal’s funeral.
Law resigned in disgrace but was allowed to move to Rome where he was given a ceremonial role and lived in a palace.
The sex assault story was made into the 2015 Oscarwinning film Spotlight, starring Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo as investigative journalists. It forced the Church to rethink the way it dealt with child abuse in its ranks.
Law never faced criminal charges for allowing groping priests to remain in parishes.
The ex-Archbishop of Boston’s send-off in St Peter’s Basilica yesterday is felt to be deeply inappropriate by those who never forgave Law for failing to halt a scandal brought to an end only by the brilliant investigative journalism of the Boston Globe newspaper.
Pope Francis has won many admirers. But this doesn’t live up to his vow to take a tougher stand against vile abuse by priests.