Waubonsee Community College

Holy water-gate, by Mary Healey-Conlon

eng

videorecording

For College; Adult audiences

Holy water-gate

electronic resource

794307792

by Mary Healey-Conlon

57

Criminal justice and public safety in video

Holy Water-Gate explores the lengths to which sexual abuse has been systematically obscured throughout the nation. It presents startling testimony from an admitted priest perpetrator, church officials and victims, as well as the story of Father John Bambrick who was himself molested by a priest as an adolescent and continues to seek justice for fellow victims. The victims, victims advocates, priests and reporters who tried to reveal the situation to public view were repeatedly blocked and/or harassed by the perpetrators themselves and by church officials. In particular the film examines abuse that was occurring in several areas around the country, including Rhode Island, Illinois, Wisconsin, New Jersey and New York and the methods and mechanisms used to conceal this wide-spread abuse. In chilling testimony, an admitted perpetrator priest, Father William C., recounts his abuse of two children who reported their abuse to the police. The report "disappeared", and no criminal charges were made. The Church sent him for six months of therapy and later reassigned him to six different parishes. When stories about the sexual abuse began appearing in the Boston Globe, the New York Times and many other newspapers, many victims came forward with their stories and sued the Church. It is clear that the Church put the protection of priests ahead of the protection of children compounding the problem for thousands of Catholic families and individual victims

general

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