Cardinal Bernard Law, a former archbishop of Boston and one of the top-ranking Catholic officials in the US, who was forced to leave his position amid a sex-abuse scandal in 2002, has died in Rome at the age of 86 in Rome, with the details of his death still unknown the New York Times reported.
Law has reportedly been living in Rome, where Pope John Paul II had appointed him the Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in 2004, though he resigned in November 2011.
Sex Scandal
The former archbishop of Boston was accused of covering up the sex scandal after the Boston Globe's Spotlight team's revelations of massive and widespread child molestation in the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation.
Sources confirm former Boston Archbishop Cardinal Bernard Law has died in Rome. An official announcement is expected to come from the Vatican.
— Steve Brown (@WBURSteve) 20 декабря 2017 г.
The cleric, however, refuted the claims by saying that he didn't know the extent of the crisis and its "ripple effect" on victims, relatives and the church.
"I learned that I didn't know a lot of things. The extent of this thing — I did not know that. I have learned much more painfully of the impact this has had on others," Law stated during his interview to the USA TODAY in 2002.
After the scandal broke, he spent weeks meeting victims and their families, issuing a public apology and advocating the position urging pedophile priests to step down, as "that risk cannot be taken."
