THOUGH LAW IS more articulate and adroit than Medeiros, he has never come close to matching the popularity and influence of Cushing, which some nostalgic types had hoped for when he arrived. For one thing, times had changed. Younger Catholics were not about to show any archbishop the kind of deference that had come naturally to previous generations. For another, Law is a cautious conservative, a favorite of Pope John Paul II, in a hotbed of liberal Catholicism. And now, of course, he has been exposed as someone who should have done more — much more — to protect his flock. Hence, a Globe poll showing that a plurality of Catholics thinks that Law should resign and a Herald poll that found most Catholics still don’t think the hierarchy has leveled with them should be surprising only to those who haven’t been paying attention.

Globe editor Marty Baron told me in an e-mail, "While there have been any number of priest sex-abuse cases throughout the country, I believe this is the first time the public has gained meaningful insight into the internal operations and deliberations of the Church hierarchy — the repeated warnings it had received that a priest was abusing children, the Church’s internal memos, how it handled communications and complaints from parishioners, how it handled medical treatment of a priest who had been accused of sex abuse repeatedly over the course of several decades, and the exact nature of the medical evaluations it was citing as the basis for putting accused priests back into service."

As for what the effects of this media scrutiny will ultimately be, Baron says, "The Church has already announced strict new policies on sex abuse in light of disclosures in the Globe. In fact, it has revised its policies several times in reaction to our stories. I’m not in the business of giving opinions, but the Cardinal himself has said that in the end all of this will be for the better, and he has said that he now believes the Church is on the right course."

Then again, that’s what Law said 10 years ago, except this time he’s not calling down the wrath of God upon the Globe. Maybe that’s progress.

Tom Roberts, editor of the National Catholic Reporter, an independent weekly newspaper that broke some of the earliest pedophile-priest stories in the 1980s, says, "For years we’ve been told there’s just a few bad apples, and you’re blowing it all out of proportion. I think what Boston says, loud and clear, is that this is no small thing. And we wouldn’t have an apology and we wouldn’t have all these other clerical cases of sex abuse if the media hadn’t done its job. People have a right to know in any community what their leaders are doing."

Nationwide, Roberts says, the Church needs to reveal three key pieces of information: how many priests have been involved in sexual abuse; how many people they have victimized; and how much the Church has spent on legal fees and settlements. Those steps, Roberts says, would "make the apologies meaningful."

The information Roberts seeks has yet to be released. And the early signs of how the Church will change — and be changed — by the Boston scandal are mixed. In Massachusetts, the legislature is finally poised to make members of the clergy "mandatory reporters" when they learn of child abuse — which means that, if Law were to orchestrate a future cover-up, he might well find himself in legal trouble, if not necessarily in prison, as Slate suggests. (Wonder what "Number One" would think of that?)

But with the state in the midst of a budget crisis, it’s surely not good news that the Church has been distracted by the priest-pedophile scandal from its traditional advocacy on behalf of the poor. (Plus, the Church is now a less-than-credible conduit of aid to the poor, given its lack of clarity over how much it has paid in settlement hush money and lawyers’ fees.)

The Vatican, clueless as ever, has responded by saying that men whose orientation is homosexual shouldn’t be ordained. Since priests are supposed to be celibate, and the Church maintains that it condemns homosexual acts rather than orientation, that’s homophobia in its purest form. And given that the priesthood and the hierarchy would, by most accounts, be decimated if gay men were somehow forced to leave, it’s a fascinating, potentially self-destructive stance for the Church to take. Somebody needs to send a message to the pope: lusting for children isn’t a sexual orientation — it’s a disease. (Right on cue, Boston Herald columnist Joe Fitzgerald, on Wednesday, wrote a hateful little screed in which he extensively quoted a priest — anonymously, of course — saying that the real problem with the Church is all those horny gay priests.)

THE ONE THING that’s clear is that the media’s relentless attention to the pedophile-priest crisis — and to the hierarchy’s attempts to cover it up — will change the Church in ways that can’t be predicted.

"I think that eventually the anger and the frustration will subside, but it will take a generation for us to recover the trust that the people have," says Monsignor Conley, executive editor of the Pilot. "There will always be that suspicion that will linger, at least for a generation."

Will the media scrutiny lead to permanent changes in the Church? Conley’s answer points to the dilemma of a powerful institution that has historically been secretive and closed to change. "I would hope so," he told me, adding that Vatican II called for "due respect for public opinion." But then he added, "We cannot be ruled by the whims of public opinion, because we know how fluid they are."

Somewhere between "whims" and "due respect" lies the future of the American Catholic Church. Whether it can navigate its way any better than it has in the past is an open question. Especially if Cardinal Law remains at the helm.

Dan Kennedy can be reached at dan@dankennedy.net