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Cardinal Law goes on private retreat

By Associated Press, 2/20/2003

ATROBE, Pa. - Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned in December as the archbishop of Boston in the wake of the child sex-abuse scandal involving priests, is on a private retreat at a Benedictine monastery near Pittsburgh.

Law, 71, has been at the St. Vincent Archabbey in Unity Township, about 40 miles east of Pittsburgh, since early January, said Angela Burrows, a spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg. The monastery is located in the Greensburg diocese.

''Any time a cardinal would visit a diocese, he typically calls the bishop there as a courtesy,'' Burrows said.

Law said in a statement earlier this month that he plans to become the chaplain for the Sisters of Mercy of Alma, a religious order in Clinton, Md., about 20 miles outside Washington, D.C.

Greensburg Bishop Anthony Bosco told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette yesterday that he expects Law to assume the chaplain's job when he leaves the monastery.

Bosco said Law hasn't concealed his presence, although only priests are allowed in the monastery at the campus of St. Vincent College, which also includes the school, a seminary, and a parish church, the newspaper reported.

St. Vincent officials declined comment.

Rembert Weakland, the former head of the Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese, has also taken up residence at St. Vincent.

Weakland, 75, had submitted his retirement papers before reports last spring that he paid $450,000 in 1998 to settle a lawsuit brought by a man who accused Weakland of having sexually assaulted him in 1979. Weakland acknowledged an inappropriate relationship with the man, who wasn't a minor at the time, but said there was no abuse.

This story ran on page B9 of the Boston Globe on 2/20/2003.
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