Paul Kirk and the Boston clergy sex abuse saga

The late Edward Kennedy's Senate replacement has been named: he is - no surprise - the longtime Democratic party grandee Paul Kirk, who worked for Kennedy for eight years, was a good friend and is the executor of his will.

Kirk will be sworn into office today, not a minute too soon for Barack Obama's administration who need to have their all-important 60-40 Senate majority back in place, if the the healthcare reform bill is to pass into law.

Kirk, 71, was appointed by Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick after state laws were changed at Kennedy's request to allow an interim senator to be appointed, to fill in before the election proper in January.

Patrick had been urged by the late senator's widow, Vicki Kennedy, and son, Edward Kennedy Jr, to go for Kirk, and he did not disappoint them.

The one thing that could distract Kirk from the tough upcoming schedule at the Senate is a Boston legal saga in which the new senator and members of his family are being sued by the city's Roman Catholic authorities.

The Archdiocese of Boston wants to move the remains of Kirk's great-uncle, Cardinal William H O'Connell, who was Archbishop of Boston from 1907 until his death in 1944 and is one of the biggest names in the city's Catholic history.

The problem is that his tomb is situated on one of the many parcels of church-owned land which has had to be sold to meet the huge legal bills following the 2002 sexual abuse scandal involving Catholic clergy in Boston.

O'Connell was buried on land sold to Boston College. But Kirk and his family have refused to sanction the moving of their famous ancestor's remains.

Last week, the current Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean P O'Malley, who succeeded the disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law, forced to quit in 2002, went to court along with the trustees of Boston College to sue Kirk, and 30 other members of his family, for the right to relocate the remains. ·