« Videotapes can be used in sex trial | Main | Conviction of school counselor is overturned »
April 26, 2005
Clergy Sex Abuse Movie Premieres Next Week
Ted Danson Stars As Boston Attorney
BOSTON -- The clergy sex abuse scandal, which played out in painful detail in Boston's homes, newspapers and pews over the last three years, now moves to cable television in a dramatic adaptation airing next month on Showtime.
"Our Fathers" was produced by the cable network and stars Ted Danson in the lead role as Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented scores of victims of abusive priests.
Christopher Plummer portrays Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned in disgrace after internal church documents released by court order revealed that he and other leaders had shuffled pedophile priests from parish to parish while keeping their crimes secret.
It's the first film adaptation of the scandal, although a play about Cardinal Law's deposition by victims' attorneys ran last year in New York and Boston. It premieres in Boston next Tuesday and in Los Angeles on May 10 before beginning its run on the network on May 21.
Bernie McDaid, a victim of the late Rev. Thomas Birmingham, is portrayed in the movie and also was a paid consultant to Showtime. He said the movie couldn't possibly do justice to the scope of the crisis, but he hopes it will help viewers to understand the victims' pain and lead them to demand more accountability from the church.
"It opens the door to the victims and their suffering," he said. "It makes it a little more real."
The scandal broke in January 2002 after a judge ordered church papers unsealed following a lawsuit by The Boston Globe. By the end of the year, Law had resigned and hundreds of people had come forward to say they were sexually abused as children by Boston-area clergy.
The Archdiocese of Boston has since paid out nearly $100 million in settlements with more than 600 victims.
The movie, based on a book by Newsweek reporter David France, takes some artistic liberties.
For example, it portrays Garabedian as the catalyst behind the revelations of church secrets, even though other lawyers and journalists were involved. In the film, he feeds the story to a fictional Globe reporter during a series of barroom meetings after he attached the incriminating church documents to his court filings in hopes that the press would see it.
In fact, Garabedian said, he attached the documents hoping the judge would allow him to see more. He said his input amounted to a 15-minute meeting with producers when they stopped by his office one day.
He called the movie "much more accurate at some times than at others," but said he thinks it gets the message across about "the utter disregard of the church and its leaders for its children."
Other figures portrayed in the film include the late Rev. John Geoghan, whose criminal trial opened the floodgates for hundreds of other allegations about abusive priests; and Patrick McSorley, a Geoghan victim and Garabedian client who later died of a drug overdose.
Garabedian said he was "honored" to be portrayed by Danson, but he hopes the movie doesn't cloud the victims' role in holding the church accountable.
"The victims are the true heroes," he said.
Posted by Nealus at April 26, 2005 09:40 PM
