Jarring images

At Pope John II’s funeral last Friday, newsphotos showed President GMA being greeted and escorted to her seat at the Mass by one Bernard Cardinal Law. Hold it! Is this the same Cardinal Law that was hounded from his seat as Archbishop of the wealthy Diocese of Boston by irate parishioners who felt he had done virtually nothing to respond to the problem of priests in his diocese who were accused of sexually abusing children?

The same Cardinal Law who became the symbol of the Church’s inaction and excruciatingly slow reaction to the sex scandal that rocked the American Catholic Church a couple of years ago, which then resulted in an already ailing Pope John Paul II summoning all the U.S. bishops to Rome to personally ask them what had been done to both punish past offenses and assure no repetitions of this aberrant behavior?

The same sex scandal which saw one priest convicted, then subsequently beaten to death while in jail, and many dioceses scrambling for cash to pay off huge monetary settlements to avoid protracted, embarrassing and more costly litigation?

As kids say today, Mismo! So what was Law doing in Rome playing a highly visible role in the Papal funeral? Well, apparently, after being sent to Rome and reflecting upon his inadequacies and unworthiness for a year or so, he has been somewhat rehabilitated and given a reportedly high position in the hierarchy. He would have disappeared into the anonymity of that bureaucracy, but for those televised images of him flashed on CNN and other international media escorting heads of state and government.

To be fair, we should stress that Cardinal Law was never accused of any sexual or other impropriety while in office. What angered Bostonians were the revelations that he was aware of the complaints and, rather than acting decisively, engaged in limp-wristed administrative maneuvers such as merely transferring accused erring priests to other parishes within the Diocese. Inevitably, these priests eventually reverted to form and abused other children, many of whom have been psychologically scarred for life.

American commentators on TV and radio, many of whom think Law should be behind bars for his demonstrably gross negligence, went to town criticizing the Vatican for, at the very least, insensitivity towards the victims of abuse. I tend to agree. Law’s presence and high visibility among the cardinals attending the papal funeral not only rekindled painful memories but also served as a reminder that the problem of priestly abuse is not totally behind us.

Further, it emphasized the gulf between the Vatican and those who remain perplexed at the hierarchy’s seemingly over-protective attitude towards erring priests and some bishops whose first instinct is to gloss over, if not cover up, those transgressions.

There are those who are still calling for Law’s dismissal as prince of the Church. That is unlikely now. The least the Vatican should do is recognize the deep resentments that still surround Law and, far from waving him before the public like a red cape before an enraged bull, squirrel him away in some obscure library in Rome where he might begin work on a paper explaining why he let this huge problem of sexually abusive priests fester during his watch.

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Depending on what you think of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, you were either rejoicing or throwing up at the extensive media coverage given their wedding over the weekend. Opinion, incidentally, does not necessarily split along gender lines. There are as many men as women on both sides of the fence, those who are happy that the love of these two lost souls has finally found fulfillment and those who think that these two adulterers, particularly the wimp Charles who sees in Camilla the real mother he never had, should be skewered in hell.

The ribbing has been absolutely brutal. Over the weekend, it is said, Charles attended two funerals, the Pope’s and his own. The comedian Jay Leno says the one-day postponement of the wedding, to allow Prince Charles’ attendance at the Pope’s funeral, was a blessing in disguise. It gave, he says, the people over at The Swan an extra day to work on Camilla. This, of course, was an uncharitable reference to a weirdly popular television program in the U.S. where usually aging ugly ducklings are magically transformed into visions of female pulchritude through extreme measures such as liposuction, cosmetic surgery, psychological counseling, intensive diet and exercise programs, and the expert attention of fashion and make-up wizards.

Supporters of Camilla insist she was beautiful on her wedding day, clarifying she had her teeth, tarnished by years of cigarette smoking, whitened and capped. She supposedly lost "a stone" in weight, roughly about 14 pounds, and wore becoming gowns at the civil ceremony, the Church blessing and the reception. Those who disagree sort of unfairly compare the 57-year old bride with the late Lady Diana Spencer who is forever etched in our collective memory as a young, visually faultless fashion-setter.

Incorrigible Camilla-haters also see the wedding as the victory of a home-wrecker who was called "the third person in our marriage" by a visibly tortured Diana in a famous BBC interview. Still, Diana has been dead for about eight years and polls are showing that many Britons have begun to adjust to reality. Many are saying Camilla will eventually win the hearts of her future King’s subjects. Others simply do not care or insist that Charles should never be King and just allow his son, William, to take the throne when Queen Elizabeth passes away.

Some, though, aren’t quite that benign. A feisty Mohamed Al-Fayed, owner of London’s venerable Harrod’s and father of the late Dodi Al-Fayed, Diana’s lover who was killed with her in that Paris car crash, said in a CNN interview by Geraldo Rivera that Prince Charles was "a bloody idiot" for marrying Camilla. He sarcastically wondered how Charles could wake up each morning and look at someone with "the face of a crocodile."

It must be remembered that Mohamed is convinced that Diana and his son were the victims of a deliberate murder plot allegedly masterminded by Prince Charles and his father, Prince Philip. On the other hand, the British press notes that despite a ton of money spent on investigations, Mohamed has not come up with any credible evidence to support his theory.

The wedding behind them, Charles and Camilla now begin the long journey back to public acceptability. There is every indication this road will be a hazardous and uncertain one.