Boston Officials Won't Face Indictment in Scandals

BOSTON, Massachusetts, JULY 22, 2003 (Zenit.org).- The investigation into the clerical sex-abuse scandal will not result in any criminal indictments against any Church officials in the Boston Archdiocese, a state agency said.

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Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly’s report, based in part on a yearlong investigation by the state grand jury he convened, suggests changes to prevent future sexual abuses by priests but stopped short of charges, WBZ-TV of Boston disclosed Sunday.

The attorney general will publish a report with guidelines for the Church on the way it can guarantee minors’ protection.

Cardinal Bernard Law resigned in December as archbishop of Boston, which has 2.1 million Catholics under its jurisdiction. The new archbishop, Sean O’Malley, will take over his post on July 30. Until now, he was bishop of Palm Beach, Florida.

On his first day of pastoral governance in Boston, Archbishop O’Malley intends to meet with people who have suffered abuse by priests.

«Obviously, it is an important gesture to show that we realize the great dimension of the problems and that we want to be able to begin to reach and to hear from victims themselves their appreciation of their present situation,» Archbishop O’Malley said in an interview with The Pilot, the archdiocese’s weekly newspaper.

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