This documentary outlines several cases of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests on their child parishioners. One such case is of then fourteen year old
Colm O'Gorman, who, in Ferns, County Wexford, Ireland, was abused by Father Sean Fortune. Outside of the abuse, both went on with their day-to-day lives like nothing had happened. The church knew Fortune was a pedophile, but did nothing to stop the abuse. O'Gorman's was only one of several cases at that one diocese alone, those cases involving close to one hundred known children and twenty-six known priests. A now adult Colm works on behalf of abused children. His investigation discovers that Ferns is not isolated incident, and that problems abound within the Catholic Church globally. It also uncovers a 1962 Vatican decree - titled Crimen Sollicitationis - which protects the priests at the expense of the children. Secrecy is the primary objective contained within the document, with excommunication being the penalty for breaking the decree. The church's overall method for solving the problem has been to move offending priests from parish to parish, and marginalize the victims. While scandal erupts within the developed world and some countries develop policies to protect child victims, these are a piecemeal effort to deal with the issue and the problems are even more hidden in developing countries. Currently, some Catholic priests are in hiding, some in the Vatican, the Catholic Church who is providing their protection. And
Pope Benedict XVI, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger oversaw Crimen Sollicitationis globally, still has not acted on the massive allegations of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests worldwide.
—Huggo