For quite a few years I too believed that Cardinal Law was "conservative," but what finally convinced me to give up on him was when he led the push to get approval for the "inclusive language" lectionary. He led the committe that wrote it. Then when Rome refused to approve it, he led all the US cardinals over to Rome in a group to try to force approval. Rome turned him down flat. The lectionary had to be re-written (Deo gratias).
My later conclusions about Cardinal Law came from seeing the state of the diocese when I lived in Boston for 2 years. I thought the faith was extremely weak, even much weaker than other areas on the East Coast where I have lived. He provided no spiritual leadership. Meanwhile he was closing parishes like crazy. He especially wanted to eliminate ethnic parishes and consolidate them into bland "American" parishes. I have to agree with the poster who said that he was a "deceptive politician."
I found this:
December 13, 1996:
In a move unique in the history of the Catholic Church of the United States, the seven active Cardinals went to Rome to ask Vatican officials to conclude the process for confirming the proposed new English-language lectionary based on the NAB; this action was taken at the request of the NCCB Administrative Committee. Cardinal Law stated that "We were unanimous in our recognition of the need for horizontal inclusive language where it does not do violence to the sacred text or to the faith of the Church." Agreement was reached that a working group, including several bishops from the United States and representatives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Sacraments, would make a final review early in 1997 and that this "concentrated work" would be concluded as soon as possible. The U.S. Cardinals who participated in the meeting are Bernard F. Law (Boston), John J. O'Connor (New York), James a Hickey (Washington), Roger M. Mahoney (Los Angeles), Anthony J. Bevilacqua (Philadelphia), William H. Keeler (Baltimore), and Adam J. Maida (Detroit).
Which seems to bear out what you say. Look at the names... Bevilacqua and Maida - aren't they considered fairly orthodox as well? Reminds me of something that I heard Fr. Groeschel say about the crisis... it spans all "degrees" of Catholics from the orthodox to the progressives. I guess once you start "caving" on maybe a small thing (what is ever small to us orthodox Catholics ;-) ) it just gets easier and easier to give in to bigger and bigger things. And us orthodox Catholics groan but the progressives give all those nice dinners and perks.
I couldn't figure out Cardinal Law at all... he was sort of inscrutable. But I do remember that after the scandals broke I went to the St. Patrick's Day Mass at the Cathedral so that I could look into his eyes... and what I saw was a sad and sorry man. I think he tried to make everyone happy and succeeded in making no one happy.
The inclusive language is a chick thing. There is a list of demands that were made by feminists to the bishops back in the late 80s. It is quite a long list of "demands." I read them a short time ago (last month) and I was amazed that virtually each demand has been accomodated - and long ago. So steathily that it has been hard to notice, really. Maybe I'll type it up and post it later this week when I have time.
Regarding the parish closings by Cardinal Law. I plead ignorance. Until maybe 3 years ago, I paid little attention to all but the biggest religion stories. And of course as I live here in Boston and attend parishes only on the east coast, I have no idea how things might be different elsewhere. Seems like there are more heretical religious groups around here - that I do notice!