VATICAN CITY — The pope has put a priest from the archdiocese of Boston, the center of a clerical sex abuse scandal in the United States, in charge of the Vatican’s review of sex abuse by priests.
The Vatican said Saturday that the Rev. Robert W. Oliver, a canonical specialist in the archdiocese, would succeed Bishop Charles Scicluna, who was recently named auxiliary bishop in his native Malta.
Bishop Scicluna’s departure had sparked some fears among sex abuse victims that the Vatican might roll back on the tough line on clergy abuse he charted in his 10 years at the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
The Vatican office, which Pope Benedict XVI headed for nearly a quarter century, reviews all cases of clerical sex abuse, telling bishops how to proceed against accused priests.
The pope also granted his former butler a Christmas pardon on Saturday for stealing the pontiff’s private papers and leaking them to a journalist, one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent times.
The pope met for 15 minutes with the butler Paolo Gabriele in the prison where he was serving his sentence. Mr. Gabriele was subsequently freed and returned to his Vatican City apartment where he lived with his wife and three children.
The Vatican said he would not continue living or working in the Vatican, but that it “intends to offer him the possibility to serenely restart his life together with his family.”
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the pope’s meeting with Mr. Gabriele was “intense” and “personal,” noting that Mr. Gabriele and the pope had worked together closely for six years.
The pardon closes a painful and embarrassing chapter for the Vatican, capping a sensational, Hollywood-like scandal that exposed power struggles, intrigue and allegations of corruption and homosexual liaisons in the highest levels of the Catholic Church.
Rev. Robert W. Oliver to Lead Vatican’s Review of Sex Abuse Claims
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Rev. Robert W. Oliver to Lead Vatican’s Review of Sex Abuse Claims
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Rev. Robert W. Oliver to Lead Vatican’s Review of Sex Abuse Claims
