Bernard Francis Law - Move To Rome

Move To Rome

In December 2002, Law left Boston. It is often alleged that he left just hours before state troopers arrived with subpoenas seeking his grand jury testimony; however, he had previously given evidence before two grand juries and been fully investigated by the state attorney general and the five district attorneys in the counties in which the archdiocese operates. When the state attorney general issued his report entitled Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston (July 23, 2003) he severely criticized Law mentioning that "the Archdiocese has shown an institutional relectance to adequately addess the problem and, in fact, made choices that allowed the abuse to continue" but did not allege that Law had tried to evade investigation and he did state that Law had not broken any laws because the law requiring abuse to be reported was not expanded to include priests until 2002. In May 2004, John Paul II appointed Law to a post in Rome, putting him in charge of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, with the title of Archpriest.

Law is also a member of the Congregations for the Oriental Churches, the Clergy, Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, Evangelisation of Peoples, Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Catholic Education, Bishops as well as the Pontifical Council for the Family. He held membership in all these congregations and of the council before resigning from the governance of the Archdiocese of Boston, and at that time was also a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Law reached age 80 on November 4, 2011, and lost the right to participate in any papal conclave and on the same day he ceased to hold his various Curial memberships. He remained as archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore until November 21, 2011, when Archbishop Santos Abril y Castelló was appointed as the new archpriest.