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CNN Live Saturday

Law Will Not Attend Boston College Graduation

Aired May 18, 2002 - 22:21   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: When the senior class of Boston College graduates on Monday, Boston Cardinal Bernard Law won't be there, as he has been in the past. It's a reflection of how uncomfortable students and alumni are with the scandal tainting the cardinal and the church. It's a situation Boston College's president plans to confront.

CNN Boston bureau chief Bill Delaney reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A few days before graduation, on the Boston College campus, missing students, save a few straggling seniors. Missing at graduation itself this year will be Boston Cardinal Bernard Law.

WILLIAM LEAHY, BOSTON COLLEGE PRESIDENT: I called his staff and said, "I think there's some things we have to discuss."

DELANEY: What Boston College president Father William Leahy needed to discuss, students and alumni discomfort with the Cardinal's alleged role protecting sexually abusive priests.

LEAHY: He and I had a conversation recently started off the conversation, saying I don't want to detract in any way from your graduation. It should be a time of great joy for your students and their parents and families. So this year, he said, "I just won't be there."

DELANEY: A difficult phone call in difficult times.

LEAHY: For the American Catholic church, I don't know of anything that's had as profound an effect.

DELANEY: Why Father Leahy now plans perhaps the country's most wide ranging confrontation with the crisis in the American Catholic Church. Two years of classes, lectures, seminars at Boston College with nothing off the table.

LEAHY: If you're asking are there members of the clergy who have homosexual orientation today, I would say sure. They've always been there. That's not new. The challenge for anybody who is in religious life or in the priesthood is to live the life. DELANEY: Live the celibate life Father Leahy says he cherishes. Though at least for heterosexual priests, Father Leahy believes even that should be on the table.

LEAHY: We intend to be engaging questions of the day and we'll see where they go.

DELANEY: Would you rule out a married priesthood?

LEAHY: I can't make a judgment on that. I'm not part of the hierarchy, but I think all options have to be discussed.

DELANEY: A church many Catholics believe too long kept too much hidden. Father Leahy says now must be more open than ever.

LEAHY: We got involved in the coverup. And that has been the worst part of it all.

DELANEY: At Boston College, the plan now is to leave nothing, once and for all, uncovered.

Bill Delaney, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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