THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING

Law took private flight to Dallas

By Stephen Kurkjian, Globe Staff, 6/18/2002

he night before he was scheduled to board a regularly scheduled American Airlines flight for the bishops' conference last Wednesday, Cardinal Bernard Law suddenly shelved that plan and told confidants he was taking a private jet instead.

With memories still fresh of Law's secret trip to Rome in April for a private meeting with Pope John Paul II, reporters pressed Donna Morrissey, Law's spokeswoman, for details on the switch when Law failed to show up for the scheduled flight. Morrissey said Law had accepted the invitation of a friend, whom she declined to identify, to use his plane for the trip.

The plane, a Falcon-10 turbojet, is registered to a Mississippi corporation, Gulf Aire II Inc. Its president, Paul S. Minor, a lawyer from Biloxi, acknowledged yesterday that he had offered the use of the plane to Law last week because of longstanding ties between the cardinal and his family.