Peter Stanford: Abused victims of Catholic priests deserve more than resignations

There are two kinds of resignation. There's the Estelle Morris variety, a decent soul doing the honourable thing, candidly acknowledging failures and taking the rap for others as well as herself. After standing down, the individual often enjoys a better reputation than they did before. And then there is the more standard version found in British politics, exemplified by people such as David Mellor and Stephen Byers, in which someone clings to office for dear life in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are the problem. Once they have finally been shoe-horned out, their name becomes a by-word for cynicism and weakness.

It is debatable which category covers Cardinal Bernard Law, head of the Boston archdiocese for the past 18 years, while it covered up the activities of paedophile priests. In the Vatican for meetings with officials, the 71-year-old prelate from America's most Catholic city announced last week that he was resigning in the hope that it would bring "healing, reconciliation and unity which are so desperately needed" in a US church brought to its lowest point over the paedophilia scandal. Law apologised for his failings in dealing with abusive clergy and asked for forgiveness from their victims. In the rush to protect the institution and its own, Catholicism has often been guilty of sidelining the pain of those who have been abused – often by forcing them into court battles and then making them sign confidentiality agreements when it does pay them compensation – so such a reference to them should be applauded.

At first glance, then, Law has a reasonable claim to be in the Estelle Morris camp. His departure while in Rome could be taken as a sign that the highest authority in Catholicism is finally facing up to the true horror of the crisis which has undermined the faith of countless thousands of churchgoers and turned them against the hierarchy. It is estimated that outside Boston Cathedral demonstrators demanding Law's dismissal outnumber those going to mass by two to one. Some dissident Catholics have even started attending ad hoc services in local Protestant churches. So, as a signal that the Catholic establishment is determined to acknowledge openly past errors, heal wounds, make a fresh start and try to win back the confidence of its congregations, Law's resignation potentially has great redeeming power.

Such an analysis would have been easier to sustain if Law had stepped down back in April when the protesters started gathering in Boston as the full scale of the abuse became apparent (one priest, John Geoghan, had abused 86 children with more than 300 further plaintiffs making accusations against many other priests). That is when Law travelled to Rome with his fellow American bishops to discuss the crisis with John Paul II. It is said that Law did attempt to resign on that occasion, but the Pope refused to hear of it. He was fearful both of the precedent of being seen to give in to popular feeling in a church that has long prided itself on not being a democracy, and of the domino effect. Another seven US cardinals and 16 bishops are facing similar charges of cover-up as Law is. If he went, they might have had to follow suit, thereby wiping out a whole generation of Catholic leaders.

Eight months on, though, the resignation of Law has an air of reluctance and cynicism about it, especially since it was followed hours later by the news that Boston archdiocese is filing for bankruptcy rather than pay compensation to the victims of its priests. Where does such a move leave Law's appeal for forgiveness from those whose lives have been decimated? The church seems more intent on protecting its bank accounts than demonstrating its sorrow to children who have been raped by priests. Seen in this light, Law is more Mellor than Morris.

There are some positive aspects to this resignation, though. Hitherto the Pope has appeared to regard the issue of paedophile priests as shameful and sinful, but also as yet another aspect of Western sexual decadence. He has not singled it out as demanding particular action or resignations. The Vatican seemed to lump together the cases of abuse committed by priests against small children and the incidents where priests have had sexual relationships with teenage boys as part of the wider issue of homosexuality – which its abhors. Its appalling prejudice against gays has caused the church to overlook all the evidence which shows that in society as a whole the abusers of young children are often "happily married" heterosexual men.

With Law's departure, however, it could be argued that Pope John Paul has at least finally realised that sexual violence against children is so sinful that it has to be acted against independently, rather than as part of the bigger campaign against homosexuality which next year will reportedly see a ban on gay men – whether celibate or not – becoming priests. With current estimates putting the number of gay clergy at anything from 20 per cent upwards, such a move may decimate the ranks.

In this country, Cardinal Cormac Murphy- O'Connor has faced calls for his resignation over his handling of paedophile priests while head of the Arundel and Brighton diocese in the 1980s. Murphy-O'Connor's position is very different from Law's. Though his moral authority has been dented, he faces no crowds of protesters, and the number of cases under review is comparatively few. Only the cardinal and his legal advisers know if there are more potential bombshells in the files that might emerge and leave him as beleaguered as Law. They must draw their own conclusions from his case.

On the bigger question of how Catholicism is going to recover from this worldwide scandal, there do not seem at present to be any short-term fixes. Since it is usually men who abuse children, one obvious answer is to restrict ordination to women, but Rome is hardly going to buy that one given its determination to keep the priesthood an all-male (and now heterosexual) club. Tightening the regulations on existing priests is going to take a long time to calm fears. Murphy-O'Connor has introduced the toughest system of child protection in the Catholic world, but it has done little to buttress his authority when faced with allegations about cases from 10 and 20 years ago.

Catholicism is big on symbols. The circumstances surrounding Law's resignation robbed it of much of its symbolic force in signalling a fight back from the depths for the Catholic church. Yet the potential remains for others involved in this disgraceful episode at whatever level to repent for past sins and in the belief that their witness may bring precisely the sort of "healing, reconciliation and unity" aspired to by Law. If it does not stand for a prophetic morality in a world that has largely abandoned such notions, then the Catholic church stands for very little.

Peter Stanford's 'Cardinal Hume and the Changing Face of English Catholicism' is published by Continuum. Steve Richards is away