Pope Francis to Give Final Blessing at Funeral of Child Sex-Abuse Cardinal

Pope Francis will bless the coffin of disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law at his funeral in Vatican City on Thursday. Law, the former archbishop of Boston, was accused of covering up for priests involved in the church’s sexual-abuse scandals for decades. Despite that scandal and the hundreds of victims, he will be buried at the venerated Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica. Law died this week at age 86. Law’s funeral will be held inside the St. Peter’s Basilica, one of the holiest sites in Catholicism. Survivors of the trauma say they are outraged by the honor being bestowed upon him. “He’s going to have this huge funeral in the Vatican at St. Peter’s Basilica with all the pomp and circumstance. He doesn’t deserve it,” said Ann Hagan Webb, a priest-abuse survivor. “Pope Francis should have the presence of mind to just give him a quiet funeral and not incite the retraumatizing of victims.”