Messing with Texas On and on the complaints from parents, children, and pastors poured in. Over and over doctors declared Becker noncompliant and untreatable. Again and again the Church found positions for him. In 1993 he wanted to be a cruise chaplain but needed a “certificate in good standing.” The Church supplied it. …

Antigone and Antigonish, Two Tragedies So I’m watching Betrayal and halfway in. Some of the Canadian victims are seeking out Jeff Anderson, an American lawyer in Minnesota with specific expertise in Catholic abuse cases. He supplies the name “Maciel” as an example of the long-term venality of Church responses to abuse. Maciel? What?! Remember him…

Forgive 70 x 7? Let’s 86 That! Could two communities be more different than Catholics and the Amish? The grandeur of richly embroidered robes versus plain cotton clothes in dark solid colors. Elaborate stained glass windows in magnificent edifices designed by the world’s greatest artists versus simple wood or brick structures for homes, barns, milking sheds. Jet…

A Connecticut Yankee “Unsubstantiated” The trial turns things around on the Lunny brothers. Older brother Brian (he of the hamburgered hands) had found peace through forgiveness and a family, abandoning his brother for years after having left St. Vincent’s himself. Defense attorneys turned the klieg lights on younger brother Steven’s history on welfare, his…

Catholics Abuse? Protestants say “Me too!” Perhaps now is the time for a brief detour into Protestantism. Once again, the Houston Chronicle paves the way toward church redemption, or at least action. Among white evangelicals of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Chronicle found more than seven hundred cases of abuse. Most often, a common pattern was…

The Boys of St. Vincent St. Vincent is a very different kind of documentary when compared to Mea Maxima. It is, in fact, a docudrama. Where the latter collects interviews with the boys and their family, the investigators, and the Church and secular authorities, set against beautifully chosen music and scenes of nature, the former…

Father Gauthe, Part Deux For Fr. Gauthe, though, it was not ostriches, but chickens who were coming home to roost. In 1983, to put it bluntly, the shit hits the fan and legal action is finally threatened. Bishop Frey warns Fr. Gauthe, so that he has time to slip out of town heading to…

From Newfoundland to Cajun land Back in the 80s, when head CFC honcho McHugh told reporters that brothers were being transferred because of excessive corporal punishment and some minor relationship problems, Harris calls this “top-spin that bordered on deceit” [italics mine]. All I can think is that “bordered” must have another meaning in Canadian English…

“Christian” Brothers in Canada The solid black screen provides an effective cinematographic tool with white letters typed by Terry in his missive to Murphy. Other times, a small screen to the lower right accents the black screen with videos from his childhood showing some scenes of his non-signing parents and some at school. Sometimes…