Educational Media Reviews Online

Mary Healey-Conlon’s documentary, Holy Water-Gate, offers an investigation of the sexual abuse crisis faced by the Roman Catholic Church with a focus on the measures the Church took to keep the abuse away from the public view. Beginning with the case of a priest she had known as a child, Healey-Conlon investigates abuse that took place in Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York and New Jersey. Common to all of these cases was reluctance on the part of the Church to deal with sexual predators in its midst. Healey-Conlon shows how the Church engaged in a pattern of concealment of the abuse together with intimidation of those who would expose it. Healey-Conlon also notes that it was not until several years after the abuse cases began to be revealed that the national media began to cover the issue.

This documentary deftly intertwines interviews with archival footage of early television coverage of the abuse crisis. Conlon’s interviews include those with Barbara Blaine, the founder of the largest victims support group in the country, Father John Bambrick, a priest who would not allow the abuse he had suffered as a young boy to keep him from pursuing his dream of serving as a priest; and Francis Cardinal George, Chairman to the Vatican’s Commission on Sex Abuse Policy. In one especially disturbing interview, Father William C., a pedophile priest tells how he considered boys of 14 years of age or older to be fair game and mentions behaviors that would help prevent detection. As with other cases Father William C. was reassigned by the Church to a number of different parishes after being accused of molesting children. He was never prosecuted but eventually came to see himself as part of the problem and removed himself from the priesthood. This film should be of value to those with an interest in sexual abuse and the Catholic Church’s response to it. This film is highly recommended for audiences from Sr. High through adult and to the libraries who serve them.