Католик кардиналының балаларды зорлау ісіне қатысы барлығы туралы деректер

Catholic cardinal

Bernard Francis Cardinal Law (November 4, 1931 – December 20, 2017) was a senior ranking prelate of the Catholic Church, known largely for covering up the serial rape of children by Catholic priests. He served as Archbishop of Boston, archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, and Cardinal Priest of Santa Susanna, which was the American parish in Rome until 2017, when the American community was relocated to San Patrizio. Law was Archbishop of Boston from 1984 until his resignation on December 13, 2002, after his involvement in the Archdiocese of Boston sex abuse scandal became public knowledge. Law was proven to have ignored or concealed the molestation of many underage children; Church documents demonstrate that he had extensive knowledge of widespread child sexual abuse committed by dozens of Catholic priests in his archdiocese over almost two decades; he failed to report these crimes to the authorities, instead merely transferring the accused priests between parishes. One priest in Law's archdiocese, John Geoghan, raped or molested more than 130 children in six different parishes in a career of 30 years. Pope John Paul II appointed him Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome in 2004. He resigned the position upon reaching age 80 in November 2011, and died in Rome on December 20, 2017 at age 86.

Law was born in Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico, on November 4, 1931, and Helen A. Law (née Stubblefield; 1911–1991). His father was a United States Air Force colonel and a veteran pilot of World War I. He graduated from Harvard College with a major in medieval history before studying philosophy at Saint Joseph Seminary College in St. Benedict, Louisiana, from 1953 to 1955, and theology at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Worthington, Ohio, from 1955 to 1961. He was a member of the Mississippi Leadership Conference and Mississippi Human Relations Council. Law's brave civil rights activity led him to develop ties with Protestant church leaders and he received national attention for his work for ecumenism, and in 1968 he was tapped for his first national post, as executive director of the US Bishops' Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. 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 program's first year, sixty four Episcopal priests applied for acceptance. and was installed on March 23, 1984. That same year, Law reassigned a local priest, Fr John Geoghan, to St. Julia's in Weston, on the recommendation of medical professionals. Geoghan had previously been known to abuse children, and at least one auxiliary bishop in Boston warned Law that the priest was unfit to return to parish ministry. In 1985, delivering one of the few speeches in Latin at the Synod of Bishops, he called for the creation of a "universal catechism" to guard against dissent, especially by theologians. He was the second prelate to call for such a document, which became the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992). Law oversaw the first draft of its English translation. In the mid 1980s, Law chaired the bishops' Committee on Pastoral Research and Practices at the time it distributed a report on Freemasonry. Reporter Kristen Lombardi, who was assigned to investigate by Susan Ryan Vollmar, the editor of the Boston Phoenix weekly, wrote "Cardinal sin", an article about the cases.

In April 2002, following the Boston Globes public exposure of the cover up by Cardinal Law (and his predecessor Cardinal Humberto Medeiros) of offending priests in the Boston Archdiocese, Law consulted with Pope John Paul II and other Vatican officials and said he was committed to staying on as archbishop and addressing the scandal: "It is my intent to address at length the record of the Archdiocese's handling of these cases by reviewing the past in as systematic and comprehensive way as possible, so that legitimate questions which have been raised might be answered." Even so, Law submitted his resignation as Archbishop of Boston to the Vatican, which Pope John Paul II accepted on December 13, 2002. and moved to Rome. In July 2003, Seán O'Malley, OFMCap was named the new 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". The Globes exposé of the scandal was the subject of an Oscar winning film, Spotlight released in the United States in November 2015, in which Law was portrayed by Len Cariou. While no longer Archbishop of Boston, Law remained a bishop and cardinal of the Catholic Church in good standing; as a cardinal, he participated in the 2005 papal conclave. 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 became even more influential in those Vatican congregations and, being based in Rome, he could attend all their meetings, unlike cardinals based in other countries. In May 2004, Pope John Paul II appointed Law to a post in Rome, as Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, a largely ceremonial role. Some saw this an attempt to shield Law from potential criminal prosecution as his new position conveyed citizenship in Vatican City. Law reached 80 on November 4, 2011, and lost the right to participate in a papal conclave as well as his memberships in offices of the Roman Curia. After his retirement in 2011, Law continued to live in Vatican City, and regularly attended the annual July 4 Independence Day parties held by the United States Embassy to the Holy See. as of 2015, he was living in the Palazzo della Cancelleria. In May 2012, the National Catholic Reporter and The Tablet, a British Catholic weekly, reported that Law was "the person in Rome most forcefully supporting" Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori's petition to investigate and discipline the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a large group of American nuns. After a long illness, Law died in Rome on December 20, 2017, at the age of 86. He is buried in a chapel at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Vatican TV did not livestream the Mass as it normally does. Upon his death, his successor as Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Seán O'Malley, OFMCap, said it was "unfortunate" that Law "had such a high profile place in the life of the Church". He speculated that today Law would not receive the sort of Vatican appointments he enjoyed after leaving Boston "but unfortunately we're living with the consequences of that". The Guardian noted at the time that Law had become "a symbol of the Roman Catholic Church's systematic protection of paedophile priests" because of his refusal to stop sexual abuse in Boston.

Law is portrayed by Len Cariou in the 2015 biographical drama Spotlight.