Boston’s Archbishop Joins Vatican Office on Clergy Sex Abuse

 (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

BOSTON (AP) — Boston’s archbishop has been appointed to a top Vatican office that handles cases of clergy sex abuse.

The Vatican’s press office announced Saturday that Pope Francis named Cardinal Sean O’Malley the newest member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which enforces church teachings and also judges sex abuse cases. O’Malley will remain the archbishop of Boston.

He’s the former bishop of the Fall River Diocese, which oversees all Catholic churches on Cape Cod and the Islands.

The move strengthens O’Malley’s role as a key figure in the church’s work to prevent abuse. In 2014 he was named president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, an advisory body for the pope.

O’Malley was appointed Boston’s archbishop in 2003 after Cardinal Bernard Law resigned in the wake of a clerical sex abuse scandal.

Officials at the Archdiocese of Boston could not immediately be reached for comment.