Embattled cardinal handled clergy abuse case while in Missouri

BOSTON -- Cardinal Bernard F. Law, as a bishop in Missouri, handled a clergy abuse case before he came to the Boston archdiocese and encountered the problem of now defrocked priest John J. Geoghan, according to a published report.

As a bishop of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau diocese in southern Missouri in 1981, Law had removed the Rev. Leonard R. Chambers, who had been accused of molesting a child. After Chambers underwent treatment, Law assigned him to another parish, The Boston Globe reported Monday.

Catholics in the Springfield-Cape Girardeau Diocese were assured Sunday that there are no accusations of sexual abuse of minors before diocese officials. But Bishop John Leibrecht acknowledged in a letter read by priests at weekend Masses that there have been three such cases since 1984, the Springfield News-Leader reported Monday. The letter did not name the priests.

Law, who came to Boston in early 1984, has admitted that Geoghan molested children for years in the 1980s, but was kept on the job anyway, being shuttled from parish to parish. More than 130 people have come forward to say they were abused by Geoghan, who was sentenced Feb. 21 to nine to 10 years in prison for abusing a 10-year-old boy when he was a priest.

Law has announced a "zero tolerance" policy, and has given prosecutors the names of priests accused of abuse over five decades, and suspended 10 active priests. The church is slated to hand over information about victims of clergy abuse in the Boston archdiocese to state Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly's office Tuesday.

In January, according to the Globe, Law once said, "I didn't have the knowledge, the experience with this issue, the wisdom of time that I have now."

Monsignor Thomas E. Reidy, the vicar general of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau diocese, said last week that the 1981 incident was the only such case that Law dealt with during his 10 years in Missouri.

After the parents of the teen-age boy complained to Law about Chambers' alleged molestation, Law sent the then 44-year-old priest to a psychiatric center for Catholic clergy in Jemez Springs, N.M.

Reidy told the Globe that after doctors pronounced Chambers rehabilitated in 1982, Law assigned him as pastor at Sacred Heart Church in Salem, Mo., without restricting Chambers' access to children.

"The doctors believed I was rehabilitated and Bishop Law felt I was ready to serve in another parish, so I went back to work," Chambers told the Globe in a telephone interview.

In 1998, Chambers was permanently removed from duty for violating an order issued in the 1990s forbidding him from being alone with a minor.

Reidy defended Law's returning Chambers to full pastor responsibilities.

"We didn't know as much about this problem (sex abuse) as we do now," he said. "It was thought, wrongly perhaps, as it turns out, that people could be cured of this illness."

Donna M. Morrissey, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Boston, did not return calls to the Globe seeking comment.