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Mary Healey-Conlon |
Lecturer’s film on abuse cover-up in Catholic Church wins CINE Golden Eagle
The University of Rhode Island was the site of the recent U.S. premiere of Holy Water-Gate: Abuse Cover-Up in the Catholic Church, an hour-long documentary written, directed and produced by Mary Healey-Conlon, a URI lecturer in communications and film studies.
The film recently won the coveted CINE Golden Eagle Award. Prior recipients include Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Ken Burns.
Motivated by abuse victims whose stories were being rejected and whose motives were being questioned, Healey-Conlon, who had worked as a legal assistant on behalf of some of the victims, picked up her camera in 1999 and began filming.
Five years and $180,000 of personal debt later, she finished editing the documentary. Holy Water-Gate has been sold to television channels in Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Spain, and Denmark, and negotiations are underway for French, German, and U.S. broadcasts.
One of the first images in the documentary is a photo of her grandfather, Jim Healey, receiving a blessing as he became one of the first ordained deacons in the Catholic Church in Rhode Island. Healey was a communicant of St. Matthews Church in Cranston where Father James Silva was pastor.
Silva, Rhode Islanders would learn years later, was sexually abusing children. The Diocese of Providence transferred the priest to 12 different parishes during the next 16 years where the pattern of abuse continued.
Holy Water-Gate extends beyond the 49 priests, seven religious order priests, and one nun accused of sexual abuse in Rhode Island. It examines the scandal with interviews of victims, perpetrators and church officials.
Using images of white robed altar boys with their hands clasped, Healey-Conlon introduces viewers to a priest named John Bambrick, who, as an adolescent was molested by a priest who began his abuse by holding young Bambrick’s hand as they rode in a car. As a priest Bambrick was later charged by the church for speaking out about the abuse he suffered.
How did all of the abuse and the subsequent cover-up happen? Healey-Conlon doesn’t provide easy answers but chooses instead to let the audience grapple with the issues.
“I think it’s a product of denial...learning about what we don’t want to know about,” she says. “And it’s also about putting the protection of priests ahead of the protection of children.”
By Jan Wenzel
