I know Cardinal Law personally; have known him for 35 years when he was Chancellor of the Diocese of Jackson MS. He, in fact, was instrumental in ridding the Diocese of a couple of abusers while he was there. I can't see him all of a sudden deciding that the Church should avoid scandal, when he'd already handled the cases in MS.
He admitted that he was too soft on the priests; he was approaching things from his role as Bishop, which he believed was supposed to be Pastoral. I guess he assumed that since they'd been returned from their counseling, they were ready to be returned to service. He assumed wrong, and accepted the blame for that.
I'm not going to defend all of his actions, he clearly made some HUGE mistakes, and took responsibility for them. I'm just saying that HE wasn't the cause for the problems in Boston, even though the Boston Globe blamed him for all of it. The Attorney General for the Commonwealth stated that nothing the Cardinal had done was legally actionable, though the man actually said publicly that he wished he could find something to put the Cardinal in jail for. Sounds like a vendetta to me. I truly believe that he, in collusion with the Boston Globe, was actively trying to diminish the reputation of the Church in advance of the push for homosexual marriage in the Commonwealth, so that supporters of the push could claim that because of the abuse scandal, the Church had no legitimacy in opposing it. In fact the Globe editorialized just that when the subject of homosexual marriage arose. The timing was NOT coincidental.
Because you know Cardinal Law personally I can understand that you feel it was a vendetta.
In fact, one of the editors of the Globe who I know personally and some others whose names you would recognize who I know personally were all pressured by the Cardinal to cover up the story. All of them were Catholic and all of them were horrified by what had been going on and what the Cardinal was pressuring them to do.
You do know, don't you, that the Attorney General, who issued the report estimating that one thousand young men had been abused, sent state troopers to Cardinal Law's mansion in Chestnut Hill to serve him with papers. As luck would have it the person answering the door claimed the Cardinal was not at home to be served the papers. The Cardinal flew first class to Rome less than 24 hours later.
As events unfolded it may have appeared to be a vendetta. In reality most people in Massachusetts were in denial about the widespread abuse, they couldn't believe that the very people they trusted with their children would do such a thing. Then when hounded by a Prince of the Church to take part in a cover-up they were disgusted.
The Cardinal doesn't come back to the U.S. to visit. Do you think it might have something to do with being arrested if he returns?