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Holy Water-Gate: Abuse Cover-up in the Catholic Church is a 2004 documentary which investigates the crisis that emerged within the Roman Catholic Church, as victims of child sex abuse by priests fight to bring their abusers to justice. The film begins as a personal journey of filmmaker Mary Healey, who is also Catholic. Through key players in the scandal, including victims, whistle-blower priests and a senior ranking U.S. Cardinal who is called upon by the Vatican to control an ever-growing storm, Holy Water-Gate brings the viewer deep within the institutional mind of the U.S. Catholic Church: a powerful establishment that not only failed the victims for many years by not acknowledging their abuse, but also enabled some priests to continue to abuse more children by relocating them in other parishes. This intensely personal and political story investigates the crisis and exposes the reluctance within the U.S. mainstream media for decades to report sexual abuse crimes against children by priests. [1]
"Director/writer/producer Mary Healey and co-producer Louise Rosen use the abuse that took place in Rhode Island during the 1980s and '90s as a springboard to investigating the Catholic Church's penchant for covering up accusations of sexual abuse by members of the clergy. A pastor in Cranston, Father James Silva abused children for years before his crimes were brought to the attention of the Diocese of Providence. Transferred to 12 different parishes over the course of the next 16 years, Father Silva's patterns of abuse continued unabated, the parents at each new parish never realizing that their churchgoing children were in the care of a genuine sexual predator. In another shocking case, a priest reported to police by his two victims was assigned a scant six months of therapy and assigned to a new parish after the official report mysteriously vanished and no official charges were made. In many cases, when victims' advocates, other priests, or reporters attempted to reveal similar cases to the public, they were repeatedly blocked and/or harassed by church officials and—in some cases—the perpetrators themselves. Why is the Catholic Church willing to work so hard to keep these cases from the public, especially when they seem well aware that by doing so they're putting more children directly in harm's way?"" - Jason Buchanan, Rovi, The New York Times .
"Rhode Island filmmaker Mary Healey-Conlon’s documentary gives the victims of the Catholic Church a collective voice. It’s chilling to hear grown men and women describe their sexual abuse at the hands of trusted priests while seeing footage of those very priests flash across the screen. It’s shocking to hear, from the mouth of a perpetrator priest, about the 'homoerotic' church-run treatment centers, or about how boys over the age of 14 were considered 'fair game as long as you didn’t get caught.' And it’s distressing to hear, through Healey-Conlon’s personal narrative, how Church leadership opted for administrative solutions (the 'geographical cure'). In just under an hour, Healey-Conlon offers a crash course in the historical, legal, religious, and cultural aspects of the Church’s scandal. But the film never feels superficial. We are, as one survivor says, 'learning about what we don’t want to learn about,' and through that process, gaining a necessary 'knowledge of evil.'" - Deirdre Fulton, The Boston Phoenix , 2005. [4]
Holy Water-Gate was the Grand Winner of the Rhode Island International Film Awards for Best Documentary in 2005. [5]
There have been many cases of sexual abuse of children by priests, nuns, and other members of religious life in the Catholic Church. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the cases have involved many allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, acknowledgement and apologies by Church authorities, and revelations about decades of instances of abuse and attempts by Church officials to cover them up. The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14. Criminal cases for the most part do not cover sexual harassment of adults. The accusations of abuse and cover-ups began to receive public attention during the late 1980s. Many of these cases allege decades of abuse, frequently made by adults or older youths years after the abuse occurred. Cases have also been brought against members of the Catholic hierarchy who covered up sex abuse allegations and moved abusive priests to other parishes, where abuse continued.
Brendan Smyth O.Praem was a Catholic priest and convicted sex offender from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who became notorious as a child molester, using his position in the Catholic Church to obtain access to his victims. During a period of over 40 years, Smyth sexually abused and indecently assaulted at least 143 children in parishes in Belfast, Dublin and the United States. His actions were frequently hidden from police and the public by Roman Catholic officials. Controversy surrounding his case contributed to the downfall of the government of Republic of Ireland in December 1994.
The Diocese of Joliet in Illinois is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or diocese, of the Catholic Church in Illinois in the United States. It is a suffragan diocese in the ecclesiastical province of the metropolitan Archdiocese of Chicago.
The Diocese of Providence is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in Rhode Island in the United States. The diocese was erected by Pope Pius IX on February 17, 1872.
Deliver Us from Evil is a 2006 American documentary film that explores the life of Irish Catholic priest Oliver O'Grady, who admitted to having molested and raped approximately 25 children in Northern California from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. Written and directed by Amy J. Berg, it won the Best Documentary Award at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, though it lost to An Inconvenient Truth. The title of the film refers to a line in the Lord's Prayer.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, established in 1989, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization support group of survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their supporters, founded in the United States. Barbara Blaine, a survivor of sex abuse by a priest, was the founding president. SNAP, which initially focused on the Roman Catholic Church, had 12,000 members in 56 countries as of 2012. It has branches for religious groups, such as SNAP Baptist, SNAP Orthodox, and SNAP Presbyterian, for non-religious groups, and for geographic regions, e.g., SNAP Australia and SNAP Germany.
This page documents Catholic Church sexual abuse cases by country.
Twist of Faith is a 2004 American documentary film about a man who confronts the Catholic Church about the abuse he suffered as a teenager, directed by Kirby Dick. The film was produced for the cable network HBO and screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. It received an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature.
The Archdiocese of Boston sex abuse scandal was part of a series of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in the United States that revealed widespread crimes in the American Catholic Church. In early 2002, TheBoston Globe published results of an investigation that led to the criminal prosecutions of five Roman Catholic priests and thrust the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy into the national spotlight. Another accused priest who was involved in the Spotlight scandal also pleaded guilty. The Globe's coverage encouraged other victims to come forward with allegations of abuse, resulting in numerous lawsuits and 249 criminal cases.
The sexual abuse scandal in Stockton diocese is a significant episode in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in the United States and Ireland.
From the late 1980s, allegations of sexual abuse of children associated with Catholic institutions and clerics in several countries started to be the subject of sporadic, isolated reports. In Ireland, beginning in the 1990s, a series of criminal cases and Irish government enquiries established that hundreds of priests had abused thousands of children over decades. Six reports by the former National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church established that six Irish priests had been convicted between 1975 and 2011. This has contributed to the secularisation of Ireland and to the decline in influence of the Catholic Church. Ireland held referendums to legalise same-sex marriage in 2015 and abortion in 2018.
Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Canada are well documented dating back to the 1960s. The preponderance of criminal cases with Canadian Catholic dioceses named as defendants that have surfaced since the 1980s strongly indicate that these cases were far more widespread than previously believed. While recent media reports have centred on Newfoundland dioceses, there have been reported cases—tested in court with criminal convictions—in almost all Canadian provinces. Sexual assault is the act of an individual touching another individual sexually and/or committing sexual activities forcefully and/or without the other person's consent. The phrase Catholic sexual abuse cases refers to acts of sexual abuse, typically child sexual abuse, by members of authority in the Catholic church, such as priests. Such cases have been occurring sporadically since the 11th century in Catholic churches around the world. This article summarizes some of the most notable Catholic sexual abuse cases in Canadian provinces.
The ecclesiastical response to Catholic sexual abuse cases is a major aspect of the academic literature surrounding the Church's child sexual abuse scandal. The Catholic Church's response to the scandal can be viewed on three levels: the diocesan level, the episcopal conference level and the Vatican. Responses to the scandal proceeded at all three levels in parallel with the higher levels becoming progressively more involved as the gravity of the problem became more apparent.
The media coverage of Catholic sex abuse cases is a major aspect of the academic literature surrounding the pederastic priest scandal.
The sexual abuse scandal in Providence diocese is a significant episode in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in the United States and Ireland.
Kenneth Anthony Angell was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Burlington from 1992 to 2005. He previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Providence from 1974 to 1992.
The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Europe has affected several dioceses in European nations. Italy is an exceptional case as the 1929 Lateran Treaty gave the Vatican legal autonomy from Italy, giving the clergy recourse to Vatican rather than Italian law.
The parish transfers of abusive Catholic priests, also known as priest shuffling, is a pastoral practice that has greatly contributed to the aggravation of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases. Some bishops have been heavily criticized for moving offending priests from parish to parish, where they still had personal contact with children, rather than seeking to have them permanently returned to the lay state by laicization. The Church was widely criticized when it was discovered that some bishops knew about some of the alleged crimes committed, but reassigned the accused instead of seeking to have them permanently removed from the priesthood.
The Curial response to Catholic sexual abuse cases was a significant part of the Church's response to Catholic sexual abuse cases. Its policies have shifted from favoring secrecy in the 20th century to active reform and apologies in the 21st century. Under the current leadership of Pope Francis, the issue has been addressed through direct instructions to report cases of sexual abuse and revoking the former policies of secrecy.
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God is a 2012 documentary film directed by Alex Gibney. The film details the first known protest against clerical sex abuse in the United States by four deaf men. It features the voices of actors Jamey Sheridan, Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke and John Slattery, who provide the voices of the deaf interviewees.