The Vatican is considering naming a special administrator to run the Boston archdiocese if and when its leader Cardinal Bernard Law resigns, Church sources said today.
The administrator would govern the archdiocese in the name of Pope John Paul until Cardinal Law's successor as archbishop was named.
Cardinal Law slipped into Rome secretly over the weekend as the crisis over his leadership intensified. Many of his own priests have urged him to step down and angry protesters demanded he face criminal charges for his handling of paedophile clergy. He is believed to be holding talks with Vatican officials on the archdiocese's plans to declare bankruptcy as a way of dealing with some 450 lawsuits it faces from clergy sexual assault victims. Cardinal Law has not been seen in public since Sunday.
Catholic theologians and historians have used terms like "revolt" and "rebellion" to describe the situation in the archdiocese after a letter was delivered to Cardinal Law's residence on Monday in which 58 priests asked him to step down.
It was the first time a group of clergy formally called for Law to resign after it emerged that he and other church leaders shuttled priests accused of paedophilia from parish to parish.
The scandal erupted earlier this year when files in the case of defrocked priest and convicted paedophile John Geoghan showed that Law knew of accusations against him but instead chose to transfer him from parish to parish without warning parents.