Inside the tiny confessional of St. Mary’s Catholic Church on the south side of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, the bishop looked exactly as I imagined God: flowing robes, white hair, tall, handsome, big smile, deep gentle voice.
I had just turned 13 and knelt before the bishop to make my first confession. I felt the weight of his hand atop my head as he prayed over me and gave me my penance — 10 Hail Marys — but I had been so in awe of his presence that my mind had gone blank and I’d made up the short list of sins he was forgiving me for.
And thus ended my one and only meeting with the bishop who would soon be named Cardinal Bernard Law.
Cardinal Law was universally adored.
He soon landed in Boston where he “became one of the nation’s most influential churchmen, a protégé and confidant of the pope, a friend of presidents, a force in politics who traveled widely, conferred with foreign leaders and nurtured Catholic relations with Protestants, Jews and others. Admirers thought he might become the first American pope.”
He was welcomed and lauded in political circles and advised presidents, until in 2003 “he was castigated by the Massachusetts attorney general, Thomas F. Reilly, who said that as many as 1,000 children had been sexually abused by 250 priests in the Boston archdiocese over 40 years, and that Cardinal Law had known of the problem even before he arrived in 1984 and had tried to suppress any publicity about it to save the church from disgrace.”
When I read the recent OpEd from Kenya Young, president and CEO of Louisville Public Media, I was reminded why I write: to tell the public what I witness amongst the powerful in local, state and national politics.
When I meet with lawmakers for the first time, I often ask them why they choose their path into politics. I came to journalism late, but I know exactly why I eventually chose this path, and his name is Cardinal Law. The most trusted person, the powerful person you least expect, can commit some of the most heinous offenses and/or participate in the coverup.
This week I rewatched “Spotlight,” the movie about The Boston Globe reporting team that investigated and exposed the systemic child sexual abuse being covered up by men like Cardinal Law as they moved abusive priests from parish to parish instead of turning them into law enforcement.
A line from the editor of that reporting team sticks with me — “This is how it happens, isn’t it, Pete. Guy leans on a guy and suddenly the whole town just looks the other way.” — because I am often told that I’m either doing this all wrong or wasting my time, that I would really like [insert powerful lawmaker name] if I got to know him or her personally.
People look the other way when the powerful abuse their power because it is so much easier to play nice, to pretend that the terrible stuff they do with their power is just one little blip in the life of an otherwise ‘good person.’ Societal pressure — longtime member of a church, a country club, a school district, a sports team, a knitting circle, a small town — is the breeding ground of secrets.
And social media (owned by the billionaire class) preys upon our natural human craving to be included, to be liked. It’s not called a ‘like’ button or being ‘friended’ and ‘unfriended’ for nothing.
When I look at President Trump I see Cardinal Law, a man whose overt charm, public displays of power, highbrow connections, and seemingly endless influence over the lives of his worshipers effectively blinds them to his more private, possibly even evil, pursuits.
Contrary to constant prodding and advice, I no longer talk with MAGA or Trump voting friends and family about him. We might talk about local government or state politics, but I stopped talking to them about Trump after the 2024 election. They do not wear read hats because they have been fed the wrong news diet; they choose their media the way you choose a restaurant: because the place serves what they most crave.
They wear red hats with his slogans because he is their high priest, and they choose media outlets (Fox, OANN, The Epoch Times, Gateway Pundit, Lindell TV etc…) that confirm their faith.
Just a week ago the Pentagon, where most of our tax dollars are spent, effectively eliminated the news media from their building and there has been barely a blip of public outrage.
Trumpism is not a political movement; Trumpism is a religion, a country club, and a favorite sports team all rolled into one man. It would be like trying to convince a University of Kentucky devotee to don a red shirt and start rooting for the University of Louisville. Good luck with that.
There are plenty of powerful people — including extraordinarily wealthy people, some of whom own news outlets — who know exactly who Donald Trump is and that his movement is destructive and dangerous, but “This is how it happens, isn’t it, Pete. Guy leans on a guy and suddenly the whole town just looks the other way.”
I was lucky. I was never abused by a priest. I felt safe in my church family. But there were powerful people aplenty, around the world and over many years, who knew that hundreds of priests were sexually abusing children, and those people did nothing because they wanted to keep their powerful positions, their standing in their communities, and remain part of the church hierachy, unable to imagine a life outside the club.
Here’s to the reporters, opinion columnists, editors, and investigators who keep on keeping on, who keep doing their work — often with minimal pay, online abuse, and interminable working hours — even as the most powerful man in the United States regularly calls them “enemy of the people,” sues credible news organizations, uses his office for personal financial gain, and prosecutes his perceived personal enemies.
But let us not fantasize that the MAGA faithful will ever, not in their lifetimes or in mine, abandon him or somehow become convinced they were wrong. It is not going to happen. The social cost is too high.
May we remember, instead, what history teaches us: that Cardinal Law — who willfully abused his power and was dismissed from his position — did not leave The Church in disgrace.
Cardinal Law remained a leader, even after he played a key role in a scandal that roiled The Church worldwide and cost billions of dollars in damages.
Cardinal Law was appointed by Pope John Paul II to lead St. Mary Major Basilica in a downtown neighborhood of Rome and lived out the remainder of his life as one of the most influential Americans in the Vatican.
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