What, Paul Shanley couldn't get paroled?

I'll start off by saying I was raised Catholic but now consider myself to be agnostic. In another post I may get into why I'm agnostic, but I'll go on ahead and state my beliefs up front, since this post deals with the council choosing the Pope's successor and the Catholic Church.

It is beyond appalling to have Cardinal Bernard Law having a vote in who gets to be the next Pope. The man who was forced to resign from the Boston diocese after court documents showed he allowed pedophile priests to abuse kids - even commended them as they were abusing kids - is now one of the major voices in deciding who will be the next leader of the Catholic Church. Had he not been a Cardinal, I think he would have quite probably been tried for aiding and abetting the abuse of kids - instead, he gives funeral Masses for the Pope. He has an apartment at the Vatican and is the Archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, instead of his deserved location of a jail cell and the title of Inmate#AJS6351.

There's usually a point in the rise and fall of institutions where you can see the rot has passed the point of healing. A sign of this point is allowing loathsome, lawbreaking, in some cases evil people as heads of the institution without condemnation, reprimand, or even mild censure. The Republicans were edging close to that point with DeLay, although now some people are stepping up and calling him out. (And how bad do you have to be to lose support from Rick Santorum?) The Catholic Church is letting a man who facilitated the abuse of kids to stay in power and pick the next Pope. They may want to read their Bibles, paying close attention to Matthew 18:6: "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." I know translation is always an iffy thing, but surely that last part isn't: "better that he be moved to Rome and kept in his position of power, even unto picking the next leader of the Church.."