ABC NEWS SPECIAL WITH PETER JENNINGS: BLESS ME FATHER, FOR I HAVE SINNED: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN CRISIS (TV)
Summary
This program, anchored by Peter Jennings, examines the crisis brought about by allegations of sexual abuse by priests and a cover-up by the Catholic Church. The program consists of several segments covering different aspects of the topic. Jennings briefly reviews four cases that have brought the topic of abuse by Catholic priests to media attention. Reporter Cynthia McFadden interviews R. Scott Appleby of the University of Notre Dame, Monsignor Lorenzo Albaceto, Catholic League President William Donohue, Sister Kathleen Dolphin of St. Mary's College, and Michael Sean Winters about the effects of the scandal on their own views of the Catholic Church. Ron Claiborne presents a report on the thirty-year cover-up of sexual abuse by one priest, Daniel Herek, including interviews with Senior Archbishop Daniel Sheehan and parishioner Debbie Tuttle, who brought the case to public attention. Cynthia McFadden presents the results of an ABC investigation that found thirty priests that were allowed to remain in the church despite accusations against them and reports on three of those priests -- Father Jean Volger, arrested for trafficking in child pornography; Father Marvin Archuleta, moved to a Mexican parish after settling a case involving a fourteen-year-old girl; and Father Matthew Berko, who pled guilty to sexually assaulting a fourteen-year-old girl in Toronto and now presides over a Ukrainian Church in St. Petersburg, FL; Volger, Berko and Berko's victim appear in onscreen interviews. Blakemore reports on the way the Catholic Church is handling the crisis on an institutional level and discusses the internal debate over whether homosexuality or celibacy are causes of abuse; Blakemore's segment includes interviews with Franciscan seminarians, Dr. James Gill of the Jesuit Education Center for Human Development, and Eugene Kennedy, Professor Emeritus of Loyola University of Chicago. Jennings, Appleby, Albaceto, Donohue and Dolphin discuss the Church's willingness and ability to correct problems that allow abuse to happen and the Church's attempts to fix its public image. Reporter Chris Wallace talks to ex-priest Neil Conway about his confessed sexual abuse of children, what he believes led to his and other priest's abuse of children, and the way he serves the church by speaking out against its poor handling of sexual abuse cases. Includes commercials.
Details
- NETWORK: ABC
- DATE: April 3, 2002 10:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:37:00
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:70478
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Catholic Church; Child abuse; Clergy - Priests; Sexual abuse
- SERIES RUN: ABC - TV, 2002
- COMMERCIALS:
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CREDITS
- Tom Yellin … Executive Producer
- Stanley Spiro … Coordinating Producer
- Ira Rosen … Senior Producer
- John Beattie … Producer
- Li Fellers … Producer
- Catherine Lipin … Producer
- Rick Nelson … Producer
- Jill Rackmill … Producer
- Mary Raffalli … Producer
- Gabrielle Tenenbaum … Producer
- Richard Chetirko … Production (Misc.), Editor
- Dennis A. Felton … Production (Misc.), Editor
- Colin Hill … Production (Misc.), Editor
- Faith Jone … Production (Misc.), Editor
- Sharon Kaufman … Production (Misc.), Editor
- Pomerantz … Production (Misc.), Special Segment Producer
- Bob Roy … Production (Misc.), Senior Broadcast Producer
- Roger Goodman … Director
- Noah Kotch … Writer
- Peter Jennings … Anchor
- Bill Blakemore … Reporter
- Ron Claiborne … Reporter
- Cynthia McFadden … Reporter
- Lorenzo Albaceto
- R. Scott Appleby
- Marvin Archuleta
- Matthew Berko
- Neil Conway
- Kathleen Dolphin
- William Donohue
- James Gill
- Daniel Herek
- Eugene Kennedy
- Daniel Sheehan
- Debbie Tuttle
- Jean Volger
- Michael Sean Winters