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you are right. Cardinal Law was orthodox and "holy" .

But he was weak.

He also allowed heretics and homosexuals to infiltrate the church bureaucracy, either thru weakness or naivity.

Back in the early 1990's, when some PC people in the Mass. Medical society were publishing papers, infiltrating the ethics courses in medical schools, and pushing legalizing euthanasia, three of us wrote a letter pointing out the problem in detail to Law.

Now, I'm a nobody. But the other two were well known Professors, one who has published books in medical ethics, the other who has published books on Geriatric care (elderly care). I was the token Catholic, who had only one published ethics paper as my qualification.

The letter was "lost" by the bureaucracy, and finally months later, we got a bland answer saying that there would be an article in the local Catholic paper about the problem. And indeed there was: A bland article that addressed none of the issues, and probably was not read by anyone.

Where was Law?

THe follow up is that two years later these big shots tried to get the medical society to approve of a pro euthanasia law in the legislature, and it was the good old Protestant physicians who blocked it...

Ironically, the same thing happened by PC Maida in Detroit: he allows "we are church" heretics to meet there. And when Kavorkian killed a bunch of crippled depressed (but not dying) ladies, he was weak in condemning him. And a big shot "ethicist" encouraged the Medical society to remain neutral on the issue. again it was the pro life Protestant physicians who finally pressured the condemnation of Kavorkian and the laws in the legislature to try to ok killing the elderly.

Many of the present day euthanasia cases will be found again in areas where bishops are weak aka liberal...I think it has to do with a spiritual void. Thank the Lord, often the void is countered by other good Christians in grass roots organizations. But unlike the Bishops, they have more trouble getting newspaper attention, and so weak bishops make it more difficult for pro life Catholics...

Thanks for the informative post. Much to consider!

The progressives really cowed him, it seems. I don't know the higher level stuff that you have encountered (no one except FR has ever published a thing I've written!) but I know what it is like out here in the trenches because I've lived in quite a few different places since I was a kid - and have attended many parishes over the years.

What I saw in Cardinal Law was that he was quite tolerant of dissenters - maybe thinking that his words and leadership (but they had undermined it long ago and Law never generated the love of the laity here like a Cushing did - Law was perceived as a pomp and circumstance kind of guy instead of a loving father) would bring them to see the light. But he compromised so much that he had no credibility - and as you say, he let the chancery be staffed with the underminers.

Right now my parish is running a program out of the archdiocese - an Adult Faith Formation thing on the basics of Catholicism. I like to support the parish and the chancery, but anything coming out of the chancery right now is dodgy in my mind - who knows who is teaching it and if they are Catholics in union with the Magisterium - from other priests and nuns going around teaching the laity, I doubt it. So I'll save that $90 I would have spent on the program and sent it to Fr. Fessio, Mother Angelica and a missionary priest out of India who visited our parish a couple of weeks ago. And read the Bible and catechism on my own.

I didn't send a dime to the Catholic University of America this past Sunday in the collection envelope - and won't send them a penny until I know they are "kosher" - that $20 went to Fr. Fessio and Ave Maria down in Florida.