{"id":6153,"date":"2006-09-01T10:10:42","date_gmt":"2006-09-01T10:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/the-cardinal-in-rome.html"},"modified":"2006-09-01T10:10:42","modified_gmt":"2006-09-01T10:10:42","slug":"the-cardinal-in-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/the-cardinal-in-rome.html","title":{"rendered":"The Cardinal in Rome"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Boston Magazine article on Cardinal Law’s life in Rome.<\/a> <\/p>\n

The article attempts to claim that Law is exerting great "influence" in Rome  mostly because he sits on 8 dicasteries, but the solid evidence is rather thin.<\/p>\n

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Law\u2019s continued sway over appointments can be inferred from the selections of Richard Joseph Malone as bishop of Portland, Maine, in 2004, and Richard Gerard Lennon as bishop of Cleveland this May\u2014bringing to 10 the number of former auxiliary bishops of Boston who served under Law and later went on to run dioceses of their own. According to Eugene Cullen Kennedy, a former priest who has written widely on American Church affairs, the cardinal was Pope John Paul\u2019s \u201ckingmaker\u201d in the appointment of bishops during the late 1980s and 1990s. And even today, Law \u201cstill has a terrific amount of influence on what happens in the American Church,\u201d says Kennedy, who claims Law handpicked Archbishop O\u2019Malley as his own successor in Boston. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to me unfortunate that he is where he is,\u201d says Philip F. Lawler, editor of the Lancaster-based Catholic World News<\/em>, who worked for Law as editor of the archdiocesan newspaper in the late 1980s. \u201cWe\u2019re still waiting for the evidence that he understands what happened in Boston. And if he doesn\u2019t understand what caused his resignation, that raises questions for me about his perceptions of other problems, his ability to recognize what\u2019s good for the Church.\u201d Under Vatican policy, cardinals must give up their dicasterial work when they reach the age of 80. Law turns 75 this November. <\/p>\n

Since the departure from Boston of his former right-hand man, Bishop Richard Lennon, not even Law\u2019s most strident critics accuse him of any direct influence in archdiocesan affairs. And though he is said to still take a keen interest in events in Boston\u2014he reportedly discussed them with Tom Menino when the mayor visited Rome this May\u2014he has avoided returning. Even when his back trouble became severe during late 2004, he reportedly declined to fly to the United States for surgery\u2014an extraordinary decision, considering the generally iffy quality of Italian healthcare. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Boston Magazine article on Cardinal Law’s life in Rome. The article attempts to claim that Law is exerting great "influence" in Rome  mostly because he sits on 8 dicasteries, but the solid evidence is rather thin. Law\u2019s continued sway over appointments can be inferred from the selections of Richard Joseph Malone as bishop of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Cardinal in Rome - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/09\/the-cardinal-in-rome.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Cardinal in Rome - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Boston Magazine article on Cardinal Law’s life in Rome. The article attempts to claim that Law is exerting great "influence" in Rome  mostly because he sits on 8 dicasteries, but the solid evidence is rather thin. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}