AFTER BOSTON SCANDALS IT WAS FAR FROM HEAVEN

“After Boston, there is only heaven.”

It seems all but impossible to remember now, but those were the words that then-Archbishop Bernard Law used to charm Boston when he first arrived here in March 1984 to succeed the late Humberto Cardinal Medeiros.

He was 53 years old with a full head of graying hair and an incandescent smile. The local media promptly fell in love with Bernie Law. And as if on cue, Pope John Paul II made him a Cardinal a few months after he landed at the palatial residence at Lake Street in Chestnut Hill.

The despicable irony, of course, is that after Boston, there would only be disgust, disgrace and a velvet coffin banishment to Rome, seemingly one step ahead of prosecution for the cardinal who had once glided so smoothly into the power lanes of this city, while he secretly shuttled pedophile priests from one local parish to another.

Bernard Law died yesterday in Rome at the age of 86, a pariah who was granted a kind of protective custody in a Roman basilica by the Vatican.

Law, who distinguished himself as a civil rights activist while serving in Mississippi and Missouri, came to act as the chief facilitator of the sex abuse scandal that rocked the Boston archdiocese and sent shock waves across the nation and around the world.

Instead of putting an end to the shielding of abusive priests like John Geoghan and Paul Shanley, Law kept moving these priests from parish to parish and squelching the scandals with payments for secrecy.

Before withdrawing in exile to Rome, Law was ultimately forced

into a sorry, tepid admission of a scandal he helped aid and abet.

“Regrettably I, and many others have been late to recognize the inadequacy of past policies, the dimensions of the crisis, and the changes required to restore a sense of public trust,” he said in 2002. “The repeated calls for my resignation are a clear signal that many feel my leadership efforts in this area have been inadequate.”

Not merely inadequate, but illegal. Mitchell Garabedian, the lawyer who extracted a $10 million settlement from the church on behalf of many victims who had been sexually abused as children, said Law worked to prolong the cover-up by the church, thereby prolonging the anguish of its victims.

After Boston, there was only an epic and tragic fall from grace for Bernard Francis Law, who entered Boston a vibrant 58 and left 18 years later as an outcast with a collar.

The church in Boston has been working to make amends for Bernard Law’s stewardship ever since.

HERALD FILE PHOTO, ABOVE; AP FILE PHOTO, RIGHT GLORY DAYS: Cardinal Bernard Law is seen with Mother Teresa, above, at Our Lady of Help of Christians Church in Newton in 1995 and being hugged by a boy at Foxboro Stadium in 1999, right.

HERALD FILE PHOTO SMOKE AND MIRRORS: Cardinal Bernard Law genuflects near a cloud of incense as he celebrated a Mass of Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in 2001.

AP FILE PHOTOS FALL FROM GRACE: Cardinal Bernard Law, seen top right avoiding a cameraman at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport in 2002, was heavily criticized for his handling of sexual abuse allegations against priests such as Paul Shanley, right, and John Geoghan, above,...