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	Doubt, the Play, the Movie, the Sad Reality of Child Abuse, and SNAP By Pat Donnelly Montreal Gazette March 29, 2009 http://communities.canada.com/montrealgazette/blogs/stageandpage/archive/2009/03/25/ doubt-the-play-the-movie-the-sad-reality-of-snap.aspx While researching John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer-winning play Doubt at Centaur Theatre (where it continues to play to sold-out houses through Sunday, March 29), I stumbled upon a newstory in a Los Angeles paper which revealed that victims of pedophiles took issue with the movie based on the play and didn't want it to win any Academy Awards. Doubt is a tightly written play in which a tough-minded nun becomes determined to nail a priest, who may or may not be guilty of child abuse. The movie stars Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. At Centaur, the lead roles are played by Brenda Robins and Alain Goulem. Further investigation led me to the discovery of the website of SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests). And another one run by those who would hold bishops accountable. People who express themselves on these sites have problems with the ambiguities of Doubt, which leave open the possibility that the priest may be the victim of false accusations. (Something that could happen, too. Innocent people, some of them good priests, do get falsely accused of wrongdoing. Which is why we have a presumption of innocence rather than a presumption of guilt in law. My uncle Francis, who was a priest, was a decent, honest person. Like the vast majority of his colleagues, did his job and stuck to the rules.) Today, when I browsed the headlines of my morning Gazette I discovered that a class action suit is being filed on behalf of Quebec boys who were the alleged victims of sexual abuse by members of an order of Christan brothers, Les Frères de Ste. Croix, who taught at Collège Notre Dame. So sad. (Note: the accused were brothers not priests. Not that the distinction provides an excuse.) For more background on Doubt, or rather the historical circumstances which give it resonance, there's a 2004 book titled Our Fathers: the Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal, by David France. A seasoned journalist and senior editor for investigations at Newsweek, France covered the U.S. crisis over priestly misdemeanors. This is a well-written, exhaustively researched book that runs to over 650 pages. It was made into a 2005 TV movie of the same title starring Christopher
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