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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview with Kristen Lombardi, Carl Cannon
Aired May 19, 2002 - 08:14 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: The crisis in the priesthood making national headlines -- international headlines, really. Although the story isn't that new, the problem it's been covered locally in Boston for years but only now is the story filling national papers and airwaves.
Carl Cannel (ph) -- Carl Cannon, I should say, is with the "National Journal." He wrote about the issue for the "American Journalism Review." He's in Washington. Kristen Lombardi is with "The Boston Phoenix" weekly and spent much of last year covering this story.
Good to have you both with us.
KRISTEN LOMBARDI, "THE BOSTON PHOENIX": Good to be here, thank you.
CARL CANNON, "NATIONAL JOURNAL": Thank you.
O'BRIEN: All right.
Kristen, when did you first hear about this story? When did you start writing about it?
LOMBARDI: Well I first started writing about this story back in January 2001 after a front page article on "The Boston Herald" detailed how Cardinal Bernard Law was being named as a defendant in 25 lawsuits accusing Geoghan, Father John Geoghan, who's now a defrocked priest, of sexual abuse. That's when I first looked into this story. But the story of the Geoghan cases had been going on since 1996 when the first lawsuits were filed against him.
O'BRIEN: What was it about that story that struck you and made you want to start digging?
LOMBARDI: Well what struck me initially was the fact that Cardinal Law was being named as a defendant in 25 of the suits. It was certainly unusual for Boston that the archbishop of the Boston Archdiocese would be named. And I did a little bit of digging and it seemed to be one of the first times that a sitting Cardinal would be named in a -- in a -- in a lawsuit alleging clergy sexual abuse in terms of negligence...
O'BRIEN: All right. LOMBARDI: ... and complicity of that abuse.
O'BRIEN: So January 2001 is your timeframe on when this story began.
Carl, when did this story start becoming a real national story? It was really the Geoghan trial, wasn't it?
CANNON: Well that's debatable. This story's been around. Jason Berry (ph) wrote a book about it that came out in 1992. I wrote a national series...
O'BRIEN: Wait a minute, 1992, it -- about...
CANNON: 1992.
O'BRIEN: ... but not about Geoghan?
CANNON: Well about priests all over the country. I mean Geoghan was arrested...
O'BRIEN: Well I just want to clarify the point. We were just talking about Father Geoghan, you said he wrote a book in 1992, said make -- if you could make clear what the book was about.
CANNON: Jason Berry wrote a book about the problem of molestation of Catholic priests and how the bishops and -- were transferring them around the country. And he set his book in Louisiana where he's from, but he -- but...
O'BRIEN: He set his book in Louisiana. What do you mean it -- was it a novel or what are you telling (ph) -- what?
CANNON: He wrote a book about this problem and it came out in '92. And he'd been writing for -- about it for six or sevens years at that time. This story's been around.
O'BRIEN: All right, but so what's your point then, is this a story that the national media has been handling well or is it missed the boat?
CANNON: Well it's complicated. I wrote about this myself 15 years ago, a big national roundup about 25 dioceses. Every dioceses I went in had this problem and the pattern was the same that they found in Boston, they'd transfer priests from parish to parish, didn't tell the parents, criticized the victims who came forward even when they knew they were telling the truth. And I -- you know I'm not saying anybody dropped the ball, this was a big story then and the bishops said that they had addressed it.
O'BRIEN: Well so what has changed about this story that has made it -- put it right on the front burner?
CANNON: Well why it caught on is fascinating, Miles. I'm not sure there's any one reason. But one reason is is because people who had covered it thought it had been handled. The idea that Christians writing about things last year that we thought had been fixed, some of the people had covered it 15 years ago, like Jason and myself, made the scandal all that much worse. And it turned out that this had continued the whole time.
The -- one -- another factor is that I think the media is more able to write about sexual issues now then it was 15 years ago. Nobody seems too shy about it. They're taking it on in a direct way.
O'BRIEN: Much less sexual issues involving the Roman Catholic Church.
Kristen, could you have ever predicted where this story would lead you?
LOMBARDI: Well at the time I was digging into the Geoghan cases, I read Jason Berry's book and I was blown away by the similarity. Digging into the specifics of the Geoghan cases how similar they were to what Jason Berry outlined in his story. The pattern was definitely the same, just different names. And so I knew that Geoghan was not an anomaly, but I had no idea that we would see the scope that we're seeing today in Boston. Just in the archdiocese alone the names of 80 plus priests have been handed over to prosecutors, and I never would have -- would have predicted 80 plus priests...
O'BRIEN: Kristen, do you think...
LOMBARDI: ... would have been accused.
O'BRIEN: Do you think the national media kind of missed this story or was late to come to the show, if you will?
LOMBARDI: I think that the -- not just the national media but the Boston dailies themselves missed the story.
O'BRIEN: Well I thought the -- I thought the "Boston Globe"...
LOMBARDI: This story...
O'BRIEN: ... the "Boston Globe" has done an awful lot of good reporting on this, hasn't it?
LOMBARDI: Since 2002, since the beginning of this year. But the Geoghan cases have been going on since 1996, and those were covered -- the story was covered very sporadically and scattered for the past, you know, five years up until 2002 when it couldn't be ignored anymore really.
CANNON: Miles,...
O'BRIEN: Carl, is there something here at work, something insidious perhaps, journalists are pulling their punches, particularly when it comes to the Roman Catholic Church something, you know, I guess...
CANNON: Well...
O'BRIEN: ... I guess the term...
CANNON: Look...
O'BRIEN: ... sacred (UNINTELLIGIBLE) comes to mind and that probably has some -- a couple of meanings there?
CANNON: Well your larger point is right, and I -- Kristen and I are not -- trying not to criticize our colleagues who -- but, yeah, this story should have been a big story a long time ago. If that's your point, you're absolutely right about that.
And there -- and I think some journalists did pull their punches because it was the Catholic Church. Some pulled their punches because they did -- you know from the other side, they didn't want to sound critical of gay men and gays in general. There was a -- and some were afraid of sex and some people just didn't believe this story.
You know I'm in Washington here and you could say anything about a politician and anything and anybody will believe it. But you say -- start saying things about a Catholic priest or a bishop and people say, come on, you know, that can't be right. The church has done so much good in this country and it exists for the sole purpose of doing good that I think there was a collective denial in the press. No one believed this problem -- well few people believed this problem was as wide spread as it is. I think that's right.
O'BRIEN: All right, it's changed our level of credulity.
Thank you very much. Kristen Lombardi, Carl Cannon, we appreciate you joining us this morning to talk about national coverage of the priest scandal.
CANNON: Thank you.
LOMBARDI: Thank you.
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