Zap2it
(Sunday, May 15 12:04 AM)
By Kate O'Hare
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) During April, the eyes of the press and millions of the faithful turned to the Vatican at the death and funeral of Pope John Paul II and the selection and installation of his successor, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as Pope Benedict XVI.
It was probably the most attention -- and overall, the most positive coverage -- the Roman Catholic Church had received since 2002, when a persistent team of Boston Globe reporters blew open the scandal in the Boston archdiocese surrounding sexual abuse of minors -- overwhelmingly boys -- by such priests as John J. Geoghan, Joseph Birmingham and Paul Shanley.
Compounding the allegations by the now-adult victims was the revelation that church officials, and in particular, Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law, had shuffled the perpetrators from parish to parish, one step ahead of angry parents, victims and the law.
And it's not just Boston, as abuse charges have surfaced in other American cities and around the world. The scandal's aftermath was felt to some degree in every Roman Catholic parish in the United States and in the Vatican itself.
On Saturday, May 21, Showtime premieres "Our Fathers," a docudrama version of Newsweek journalist David France's extensive nonfiction book, "Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal."
Posted by kshaw at May 15, 2005 08:03 AM