RHODE ISLAND
YubaNet.com
By: University of Rhode Island
Published: Dec 29, 2004
Holy Water-Gate: Abuse Cover-Up in the Catholic Church will premiere at the Coolidge Movie Theater, Brookline, Mass. on Monday, Jan. 10 at 7:30 p.m. The hour-long documentary was written, directed and produced by Warren, R.I. resident Mary Healey-Conlon, now a lecturer in communications and film studies at the University of Rhode Island. She has just been notified that she has won a CINE Golden Eagle Award. Prior recipients include Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Ken Burns.
Motivated by abuse victims whose stories were being rejected and whose motives were being questioned, the independent filmmaker, who had worked as a legal assistant on behalf of some of the victims, picked up her camera in 1999 and began filming.
Five years and $180,000 of personal debt later, Healey-Conlon finished editing the documentary last June. Holy Water-Gate has been sold to television channels in Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Spain, and Denmark. Negotiations are underway for French, German, and U.S. broadcasts.
One of the first images in Healey-Conlon’s documentary is a photo of her grandfather, Jim Healey, receiving a blessing, as he became one of the first ordained deacons in the Catholic Church in Rhode Island. Healey was a communicant of St. Matthews Church in Cranston where Father James Silva was pastor.
Silva, Rhode Islanders would only learn years later, was sexually abusing children. The Diocese of Providence transferred the priest to 12 different parishes during the next 16 years where the pattern of abuse continued.