Will We Ever Get A Good Biography Of Bernard Law?

This comes up as I keep asking questions about his Harvard years and what led him to the priesthood. The two best current biographies I can find are in his obituary at the National Catholic Register and his Wikipedia entry. Neither contains much about his Harvard years or what led him to the priesthood. According to the Register,

Bernard Law was born in Torréon, Mexico, Nov. 4, 1931. His father was a Catholic U.S. Air Force colonel and his mother a Protestant concert pianist who converted to Catholicism in the 1950s. He grew up attending schools in different countries, including Colombia, before graduating from high school in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, where he first learned journalism at the Virgin Islands Daily News. He graduated from Harvard University in 1953 with a B.A. in medieval history.

Called to the priesthood, he undertook his studies at St. Joseph Seminary in St. Benedict, Louisiana. . .

Whoa, hold on. What called him to the priesthood? It appears he was an only child, with a Protestant mother, and if she was a concert pianist, I'm wondering how much time she had for him. Perhaps it was Latin American nannies, huh? His father, Bernard Aloysius Law (1890-1955), died in Jackson, MS, which is about the only independent listing I can find for him.

I suspect his father, although listed as an Air Force colonel, may have served at times as a diplomat if the family spent so much time in places like Mexico or Colombia, or, like my own grandfather, a World War I officer, he may have been a reservist and was reactivated during World War II, working at a different career between the wars. And although Bernard Aloysius Law was buried in Jackson, MS in 1965, his mother, Helen A Law, a much younger woman, passed away in Boston in 1991, where her son was cardinal archbishop.

This isn't the stereotypical background for a Catholic priest, whom we might imagine would come from a family with both parents Catholic and a large number of siblings -- indeed, such a family might well have a tradition of producing priests. Instead, rather than to a seminary, Law went to Harvard. It's worth pointing out that, although Harvard had been socially selective since its founding, academic competition for positions in entering classes in the Ivies was a recent innovation in the late 1940s, and even now, it isn't fully clear what percentage of elite-school classes is actually subject to academic competition.

Admission to Harvard in 1949, the year Law entered, wasn't the same thing as admission 20 years later. Social standing was still more important than SAT scores, and it simply isn't clear what qualified him for admission. That he chose to live in Adams House, the most socially prestigious campus dorm, as well as the "gay house" (curfews were much looser there, for instance), suggests he may have had some social cachet.

Different questions come up over Law's schoolmate and lifelong associate, William Stetson. Stetson was also an only child of a Catholic mother and an Episcopalian father, but Stetson's background is much clearer: his father was a plumber, and his mother was an office worker at a time when working wives were looked down on. Yet Stetson also lived in Adams House and drove a Buick.

One question I had about Law was why, if he'd spent his youth in Latin America and the US Virgin Islands, he entered the priesthood via the Diocese of Natchez-Jackson in Mississippi. Dioceses normally prefer candidates who've grown up within the diocese and are well known to parishes and clergy there, although they make exceptions for sons of military families. But since Law's father passed away in Jackson, MS, it may be that the family had settled there following the father's retirement, although Bernard Aloysius Law's family background was in Pennsylvania.

For that matter, it isn't clear what brought Law's close associate Stetson to the priesthood. Law is said to have encountered a group of Spanish Catholics at Harvard -- it's hard to avoid thinking there may have been a connection with Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei. Since Law had learned fluent Spanish in his years in Latin America, he became close to this group, and when he left Harvard, he asked Stetson to "keep an eye on them". Stetson was in pre-law at Harvard, and apparently a year behind Bernard Law, he seems to have become an Opus Dei numerary in 1953, his junior year. Then, following graduation from Harvard Law School, Stetson proceeded to Rome and was ordained via the Opus Dei seminary.

It's worth pointing out that the history of Opus Dei in Boston during this time that I've cited here says explicitly that Stetson made his 1953 decision for Opus Dei during a session at a Boston all-night cafeteria. All-night urban cafeterias, I've discovered in an entirely different context, were at the time popular gay cruising venues.

My regular correspondent is fond of prompting me to recognize that gay networks in the Catholic Church predate the 1960s. I've never disagreed. Francis Cardinal Spellman is generally acknowledged to have been a notoriously active homosexual well before the 1950s, for instance, and this probably contributed to the feud between Spellman and Ven Fulton Sheen.

There's a great deal more to learn. If anyone is aware of more extensive biographical information on Cardinal Law than the rather sketchy accounts I've found on the web, I'd greatly appreciate any leads. I think a more detailed look at Law and the specifics of his life will help in a needed reinterpretation of the First Crisis.