Thou Art Mothership

Scathing anger from a Boston Globe columnist who just found out that the Archdiocese of Boston is part of a universal communion

Under Archbishop Sean O'Malley, everything is different and everything is exactly the same. In some quarters, the disappointment is so keen, it raises questions: Who, really, is in charge? Is Cardinal Bernard F. Law, the man who aided and covered up the scandal, still calling the shots from Rome?

Two years ago, O'Malley was embraced as the new leader of the Boston archdiocese. The friar known for his brown robe, sandals, and prayerful humility would supposedly end the arrogant -- and tragic for its victims -- reign of his predecessor. ''The leadership promised hasn't been delivered . . . He is not running the show," Jack Connors Jr., a prominent member of Boston's Irish Catholic establishment, now says of O'Malley....

O'Malley has retained holdovers from Law's regime such as Bishop Richard Lennon and Chancellor David Smith. And that adds to the suspicion that the cardinal who was banished from Boston is still running the show from the Vatican basilica over which he now presides. Either O'Malley is making unpopular decisions on his own, or Law, through his holdovers, is telling him what to do. Neither possibility endears him to wealthy, influential Catholics such as Connors. He calls O'Malley, ''a good man, a prayerful man, who, I have the feeling would be happier working for the poorest of the poor."

Yeah, the "Law's still pulling the levers" theory has been floating around for a couple months -- I've heard it several times from several Boston sources.

Bernard Law and Tom DeLay are more alike than meets the eye, after all. Think about it.

On a final Boston note -- that is, until the next explosion -- the good Father Cuenin's supporters today held a march they called the "Walk for Walter." Carol McKinley & Co(nservatives). most likely held a parallel event called "Walk on Walter."

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