US: The bishop who soothed victims' anger in one of the first big clergy sex abuse scandals in the US will replace Cardinal Bernard Law as leader of the crisis-torn Archdiocese of Boston, according to a report published yesterday.
The Vatican will announce in the coming days that Pope John Paul II has picked Bishop Seán Patrick O'Malley, Catholic bishop of Palm Beach, Florida, to permanently replace Cardinal Law, said John Allen Jnr, a Rome correspondent for National Catholic Reporter, which published the report on its website.
The cardinal resigned in December after a scandal in which leaders of his diocese allowed priests who were known sex abusers to remain in active ministry instead of defrocking them or reporting them to civil authorities.
Vatican sources would only confirm that Bishop O'Malley (59), was among those considered for the Boston post, one of the most important in the Catholic Church in the US.
Spokesmen at both the Archdiocese of Boston and the Diocese of Palm Beach did not return calls seeking comment.
But Mr Roderick MacLeish, a Boston lawyer representing hundreds of people who have brought sex abuse lawsuits against the Boston archdiocese, said he has known Bishop O'Malley for a decade and called him the best man for the job.
"If this is true, this is extraordinary news. He is extremely humble and very compassionate," he said.
Bishop O'Malley was bishop of Fall River, Massachusetts, from 1992 to 2002. There he dealt with the case of James Porter, a former priest jailed for molesting children. - (Reuters)