Noting the ''keen interest'' in the clergy sex abuse cases, a Superior Court judge yesterday ordered the release to the public of videotaped depositions of Cardinal Bernard F. Law and Bishop John M. McCormack.
Law had opposed the request from numerous media organizations, including the Globe, for videotapes of the two church officials answering questions under oath from lawyers for alleged victims of the Rev. Paul Shanley and former priest John J. Geoghan. Law argued that the tapes should be released in an edited form when the trials were over.
If the tapes were released sooner, his lawyers argued, the resulting publicity would taint the pool of potential jurors. The alleged victims charge that church officials knew both men were serial pedophiles, but still moved them from church to church, allowing Shanley and Geoghan to molest more children.
Judge Constance M. Sweeney agreed that the videotapes probably would reach a larger audience than would the written transcripts of the depositions, which she already had ordered released. And she suggested that the tapes would allow the public to judge Law's credibility, relying not only on his words, but also on his tone of voice and demeanor.
But in her latest ruling on balancing the intense public scrutiny of the sex abuse scandal with the constitutional rights of Law and others, Sweeney noted that the cardinal has his own media outlet through which he can respond to the lawsuits: the archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot.
''Both Cardinal Law and Bishop McCormack are public figures and both have publicly discussed the ongoing litigation, as well as publicly commenting on proposed civil and religious policy reforms to better identify the perpetrators and victims of clerical sexual abuse,'' Sweeney wrote.
Moreover, she wrote, the state's highest court has ruled that judges can protect defendants from intense publicity before trials by questioning potential jurors or moving the trial away from the epicenter of the publicity.