Cardinal Law talks about 'difficult transition' after resignation

Published: 2003-12-15

BOSTON (CNS) -- Cardinal Bernard F. Law, retired archbishop of Boston, reflected on his 30 years as a bishop and the "very difficult transition" following his December 2002 resignation in an interview published Dec. 12 in The Pilot, Boston archdiocesan newspaper. The cardinal spoke by telephone with Antonio Enrique, editor of The Pilot, while en route to New York in early December for the start of a trip to Vietnam at the invitation of Cardinal Jean-Baptiste Pham Minh Man of Ho Chi Minh City. "Obviously, it is a very difficult transition to go from the kind of life and the kind of schedule that I had ... to something that is not pressured," he said. "For 29 years as bishop I had that kind of schedule, so it does take a while to adjust. Thank God, I've managed to do that, I think, rather well." Cardinal Law said he recently spent about six weeks in Rome for events surrounding Pope John Paul II's 25th anniversary as pope, the installation of new cardinals and meetings of several Vatican congregations to which he still belongs. "I am able to devote more time to that (congregation) work than I was able to do before," he said. "Hopefully, I will be able to continue to do that sort of thing."

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