Cardinal Bernard Law, who was forced to resign as archbishop of Boston over a sexual abuse scandal, was given a new post by Pope John Paul on Thursday.
A Vatican statement said the pope had appointed Law to be the archpriest of the Rome Basilica of St Mary Major, one of the most important churches in the Italian capital. The archpriest is the senior figure in a cathedral or a basilica, responsible for how it is run and usually presiding at many of the services.
The sex abuse scandal swept the U.S. Church in 2002, when it was discovered that many bishops had moved priests known to have sexually abused minors from one assignment to another instead of defrocking them or reporting them to the civil authorities.
The U.S. church has paid nearly $700 million in damages to abuse victims, including some $85 million paid out by the Archdiocese of Boston, where the scandal first hit the headlines.
Law resigned in disgrace in December 2002 after dozens of his own priests had publicly called on him to step down. Since then, he has spent more time in Rome than in the United States and many Vatican observers have wondered whether the pope would give him another position.
Last month, the cash-strapped Archdiocese of Boston said it would sell its archbishop's mansion and surrounding lands for more than $100 million to Jesuit-run Boston College to help pay legal settlements with hundreds of sexual abuse victims.