seeking pop culture references to child abuse by priests

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I'm interested in compiling early pop culture references to sexual abuse by members of the clergy, prior to the early 1990s. Film, television, plays, song lyrics, stand-up comedy, even just plain schoolyard jokes. Specifically not actual news media accounts unless they are somehow tied directly to a work of creative fiction.

Growing up in the 1980s, the Jim Bakker scandal loomed large, but I didn't realize until recently that he had raped Jessica Hahn. I had been under the impression that it was just an affair.

I remember a surge of songs in punk and metal worlds that were written in response to Jim Bakker and other hypocritical televangelists. Off the top of my head, Send Me Your Money by Suicidal Tendencies addressed his thievery. But Nuclear Assault's Preaching to the Deaf included the line "praise the Lord and send in your donations even though I have sinned against you/and never mind those dirty pictures that are circulating with the little girl in the saddle." I'm pretty sure that was the first time I had heard about priests sexually abusing kids. I was in middle school at that point.

A few years later, in 1994, Baltimore had a sexual abuse lawsuit that would later be chronicled in the Netflix series The Keepers. I remember reading about it in The Sun at the time and on the few occasions that it came up in conversation, my peers saying things like "they're just making it up to get money." So I get the impression that by that point the idea of priest sexual abuse was not widespread. Now in 2019 I feel like there's hardly a day that you don't see it in the papers.

Because I was a mostly-oblivious child at the time, what I'm trying to figure out here is to what extent the idea of priest sexual abuse of children was percolating in popular culture. Would grown people have had an idea that something was going on, even if they weren't directly exposed to it themselves?

☮ (peace, man), Friday, 8 March 2019 11:58 (five years ago) link

I realize that the title specifically says 'priests', but this can be an interfaith investigation: pastors, ministers, etc. are welcome

☮ (peace, man), Friday, 8 March 2019 12:05 (five years ago) link


The Globe and Mail (Canada)

December 2, 1989 Saturday

NO LAUGHING MATTERS?

BYLINE: STEPHEN GODFREY; GAM

LENGTH: 1997 words

DATELINE: ST. JOHN'S, NF

BY STEPHEN GODFREY
The Globe and Mail
ST. JOHN'S, Nfld.
IN THE comic half-hour film, Extraordinary Visitor, made by some of
Newfoundland 's most talented filmmakers in 1982, there is a scene in
which actor Andy Jones plays the Pope, whose attention has been drawn to
the small island of Newfoundland across the sea.

"I recall an incident there with the Brothers," says his secretary. "Ah
yes, the Brothers . . . and little boys," says Jones as the Pope, and
makes a sexual movement with his tongue. He sighs. "The Irish, they have
no discretion."

By many accounts, the violent treatment of children by some members of
the lay teaching order known as the Christian Brothers has been known for
years, but Extraordinary Visitor contains one of the first sexual
references. Since then, artists and entertainers have been among the first
and most vocal in highlighting - usually humorously - sexual and physical
abuses by priests in general and the Christian Brothers in particular. But
that was before their images became true beyond their most vivid
imaginings. The targets for humor have now shifted.

☮ (peace, man), Friday, 8 March 2019 14:21 (five years ago) link

ABA Journal

October 1, 1988

74 A.B.A.J. 17

SAY 'JACK' 40,000 TIMES: Harassed lawyer sues Miami radio stations for $ 200 million

AUTHOR: Nancy Blodgett

LENGTH: 688 words

SECTION: News

A Coral Gables, Fla., lawyer, a candidate for Dade County State Attorney, has sued two popular Miami radio stations for $ 200 million for allowing a talk show host to harass him over the airwaves.
The lawyer, Jack Thompson, claims the stations violated a December 1987 agreement to stop the on-air harassment by Neil Rogers, the stations' top-rated air personality.

The Guy Gannett Publishing Co.-owned stations, WZTA-FM and its AM sister, WINZ, claim the agreement is void.

The battle began when Thompson tuned into Rogers' midday show in August 1987, and heard the talk-show host soliciting homosexual listeners to come with him on a vacation to Hawaii. Rogers said he wanted to have sex with the young, attractive male whom he picked to come along, according to Thompson. He said the station is not primarily for homosexual listeners.
"I objected to that in a letter, and the next thing I knew my name, address and phone number had been broadcast on the station," said Thompson. "I immediately received death threats and bomb threats."

He found a rifle target, shot full of holes, set up on his front lawn. A man screamed obscenities at him and his wife from their front yard one night. Appointments were made for him at urologists, rectal surgeons and psychologists throughout the Miami area. A realtor came to the Thompsons' house, unsolicited, and said, "I'm sorry you and your wife are getting divorced and you have to sell your house."

Rogers encouraged the same type of treatment toward a Miami-area cardiologist who objected to jokes Rogers made about Pope John Paul II having sex with his altar boys, Thompson said.

...

Talk radio was not specified in the original post, but ok.

☮ (peace, man), Friday, 8 March 2019 14:52 (five years ago) link

I realize that this isn't exactly a "fun" thread.

☮ (peace, man), Friday, 8 March 2019 20:17 (five years ago) link


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