Cardinal Law's legacy: a stain of scandal on the church

When the clergy sex abuse scandal erupted in Boston in 2002, Cardinal Bernard Law had every reason to think he would survive. Law had a place among the powerbrokers of the heavily Catholic city. He was a friend of U.S. presidents, an emissary of Pope John Paul II.

But after months of disclosures about how he had protected child-molesting priests, Law was driven out as the church found itself in crisis across the U.S. and around the world.

"We're still reeling from the catastrophic damage to the Catholic church's credibility," said Christopher Bellitto, an authority on church history at Kean University in New Jersey.