IRELAND
Irish Times
Simon Carswell
Shortly after the Boston Globe began to break stories about sexual abuse by priests and the decades-long cover-up by the Catholic Church, in 2002, the newspaper’s editor, Marty Baron, received a letter.
It was from a prominent Bostonian, complaining about the coverage by the newspaper and its Spotlight investigative team. He wrote that such a story would never have been pursued under previous editors of the Globe. The editors all had Irish Catholic names.
“I was very upset over that letter and sent a stern letter in response,” says Baron, who is now executive editor of the Washington Post. It was a clear warning that he was taking on something sacred in Boston. At the time of the exposé Baron was less than a year in the editor’s seat at the Globe.
The veteran newspaperman, who is Jewish, interpreted the letter as “borderline anti-Semitic, if not over the line”. When they met, the man insisted that his letter was not meant that way, and apologised.
Baron’s decision to pursue the investigation and rattle Boston’s biggest cage was ultimately vindicated. The reports revealed the sexual abuse of hundreds of people by dozens of priests. They told how the city’s Catholic hierarchy had turned a blind eye and even permitted the abuse, shuffling serial-molesting priests around parishes.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.