TV Movie on Catholic Abuse Isn’t Anti-Catholic, Actors Say

c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Ted Danson is no newcomer to TV movies that tackle difficult subjects. He won a Golden Globe award for his work in “Something About Amelia,” the landmark 1984 film about incest. The Emmy-winning “Cheers” star has top billing in “Our Fathers,” Showtime’s movie about the sexual-abuse scandal that rocked […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Ted Danson is no newcomer to TV movies that tackle difficult subjects. He won a Golden Globe award for his work in “Something About Amelia,” the landmark 1984 film about incest.

The Emmy-winning “Cheers” star has top billing in “Our Fathers,” Showtime’s movie about the sexual-abuse scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church. It premieres at 8 p.m. EDT Saturday, and Danson knows that the very topic makes this drama controversial.


But he hopes “Our Fathers” won’t be viewed as anti-Catholic. Many of the film’s heroes are Catholic, Danson says, and certainly the victims brave enough to confront tortuous pasts are Catholic.

Olan Horne agrees with Danson. Portrayed by Chris Bauer in the cable film, Horne was a 12-year-old schoolboy when first molested by a Boston Archdiocese priest named Joseph E. Birmingham.

“We’re Catholic chickens who came home to roost,” Horne said of himself and fellow abuse survivors. “Remember, we learned our morals here. I wasn’t a weekend Catholic.”

And Horne’s message is not one of anger and attack. It’s about healing.

“I have a great relationship with the Catholic Church,” Horne told TV critics in Los Angeles. “I’ve had a lot of face time with the current bishop, and I work with a lot of bishops, because if you allow them to not accept responsibility for what they have done, if you allow them to pay these settlements out and allow them to walk away from this issue, they haven’t learned. There’s no restorative justice in place.

“So I have a relationship with the church. I call it a working relationship. I don’t judge them, but I hold them dearly responsible for their behavior.”

Starring Danson, Brian Dennehy, Christopher Plummer, Daniel Baldwin, Bauer and Ellen Burstyn, the Showtime film is based on Newsweek journalist David France’s 2004 book, “Our Fathers: The Secret Life of the Catholic Church in an Age of Scandal.” The movie’s director and executive producer is Dan Curtis, whose credits include the miniseries versions of Herman Wouk’s “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance.”

Curtis, also known for the supernatural soap opera “Dark Shadows” and the TV movie “The Night Stalker,” was at the helm of another fact-based drama aired this year, “Saving Millie,” journalist Morton Kondracke’s account of his wife’s battle with Parkinson’s disease.


Plummer plays Cardinal Bernard Law, sharply criticized for his failure to deal with abuse cases in the Boston Archdiocese. Danson plays Mitchell Garabedian, one of the first lawyers willing to represent abuse victims. And Dennehy plays Dominic George Spagnolia, a priest who condemned the church cover-up from his pulpit.

“The thing about this crime is that it’s the crime that keeps on giving,” Dennehy said. “It’s not just the kids. It’s their families, their brothers and sisters, their uncles, their aunts, their wives or husbands, their children, generation after generation, person after person.”

Dennehy is a Catholic, and, like Horne, he hopes people will take “Our Fathers” in the spirit in which it is intended.

“I’m not the Catholic I was when I was 10, God knows,” Dennehy said. “But these things are said, for me, more in sorrow than in rage.”

Horne believes it would be tragic if that sorrow was not channeled in constructive ways. And he believes it would be a mistake to think this is strictly a crisis for the Catholic Church.

“It is so easy for us to push this over to the Catholic Church and say, `Look at how horrible this is,”’ Horne told critics. “It is horrible, but I have some bad news for you. It’s happening with people you know. … Of course, this is happening everywhere. It’s happening all over the world. Look at the tsunami. The first victims of prey are the children who have lost their parents: slavery and child prostitution. And it’s happening everywhere.”


Danson says he is most impressed by the courage and commitment displayed by abuse survivors Horne and Bernie McDaid, also portrayed in “Our Fathers.” “Instead of being victims or just buried in anger, they’ve gone out and tried to find ways to bring healing to both the people who were victimized and to the church itself,” Danson said. “I didn’t have a huge desire to play Mitchell Garabedian. I had a huge desire to be a part of this piece because I think it absolutely serves a social good.

“This is not just pointing a finger at the Catholic Church. This is jumping up and down and saying, `Look at what we’re doing to our children.’ Because it’s not just in the Catholic Church. That’s what this story is about, but don’t mistake that it’s just about the Catholic Church.”

MO/PH RNS END

(Mark Dawidziak writes for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland)

Editors: Search the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for a photo to accompany this story.

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