Stan Doherty didn’t believe what he was reading when he opened his copy of The Boston Globe on January 6, 2002. He saw the first article in a series
about the widespread and systemic abuse of children by clergy members
in the Catholic Church—a church he was part of. He closed the paper,
incredulous.
That month, hundreds of his fellow
parishioners began to gather outside the 11:30 a.m. mass at the
Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston to demand the resignation of one
of the church’s clergy members, Cardinal Bernard Law. The Globe found Law had kept abusive priests,
including Rev. John Geoghan, in the ministry for years despite
allegations of child sexual abuse. (Geoghan was accused of abusing more
than 100 children.)