The attorney general of Massachusetts, Tom Reilly, who never met a camera he didn’t like, has convened a grand jury and is calling bishops and priests of the Archdiocese of Boston to testify. Bishop William F. Murphy, formerly moderator of the curia in Boston and now ordinary of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, testified yesterday and Cardinal Law will testify on Feb. 25.
I predict that when all is said and done, the grand jury, under Reilly, will issue a report not unlike the one done by the grand jury in New York, that criticizes the diocese for coverups and protection and all the stuff we already know about and that will be all. The press will be all atwitter about it for a few days, Reilly will get to stand up in front of the cameras and appear morally indignant, the lawyers suing the diocese will get to try their cases in public, and then ... nothing. No indictments will be filed and we’ll go back to the way it was a week ago.
In other words, I think this whole grand jury has been an exercise by Reilly to stick himself into the biggest story in Boston over the past year and that’s it.
