CNN's fall from grace.

Accusations of sexual abuse against Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago have shocked and saddened many Americans. Bernardin categorically denied the charges contained in a $10-million civil suit filed by Steven Cook. Cook, now thirty-four years old, claimed on TV that when he was seventeen a Cincinnati priest initiated him into homosexuality, that Bernardin sodomized him, and that these experiences led to a life of promiscuity and drug abuse. Cook, who has AIDS, says he recovered the memory of the priest's abuse within the last year, and of Bernardin's within the last month - all of this at least fifteen years after the alleged events.

There is not now and may never be any evidence to judge the veracity of Cook's charges except his alleged recovered memory and the chutzpah displayed by his lawyer, Stephen Rubino. For unlike a criminal indictment, which requires a prosecutor to gather and to present to a grand jury evidence sufficient to warrant prosecution, this is a complaint by which the defendants are put on notice that they are going to be sued. Such lawsuits can be frivolous maneuvers in struggles to win out-of-court settlements and other advantages over an adversary when criminal indictments are unlikely. The complaint in this case does nothing more than repeat Cook's allegations, cite the laws under which the suit has been entered, and ask for a jury trial. Evidence? As of this writing, there is none.

This brings us to CNN (Ted Turner's Cable News Network) which broke the story in an interview with Cook on the morning (Friday, November 12) the complaint was filed; the interview was preceded and followed by Bernardin's denials. Did this scoop show CNN to be supremely enterprising - as in its Gulf War coverage - merely sensationalistic and exploitative, or simply anti-catholic? The Atlanta-based network followed the Cook interview with an announcement of its previously planned hourlong primetime show, "Fall from Grace," to be broadcast the following Sunday (November 14), the day before the Catholic bishops were to gather for their annual meeting in Washington. Fall from Grace" was to explore the problem of sexual abuse among priests.

In fact, the program, most of which had been filmed before Cook's accusations were made public, had almost nothing new to report. Nothing, that is, except Cook's accusation which are briefly repeated during the show. Cardinal Bernardin, who has been a leader among the bishops in efforts to change the way the church deals with abuse cases, is made "the star." He is interviewed defending the innovative procedures adopted in Chicago for determining whether there are grounds for accusations against a priest, and whether a priest should be removed from his ministry. Unavoidably, these once largely informational segments - now shown after Bernardin himself has been accused - seem ludicrous, unfeeling, and self-serving. In introducing Bernardin from segment to segment as the bishop who instituted measures to deal with priest pedophilia, "Fall from Grace" reiterates the accusations against him at least four times, often using as a verbal bridge the insinuating refrain - "prior to being accused of being an abuser himself."

This concentration on Bernardin was wildly disproportionate. Yes, Catholic priests have abused children, but Bernardin cannot in any fair-minded way be presented as either emblematic of the problem or central to it. But that is the impression the show leaves with the viewer. An there is another, broader insinuation. In sequence after sequence, the reporter narrates the now familiar story of priestly pedophilia over pictures of liturgical events, especially an ordination ceremony. What is the subliminal message? Among the Catholic clergy, hypocrisy is rank and rife.

In one segment, "Fall from Grace" stage an interview with a "recovering" priest-abuser in front of an illuminated stained-glass window. As the priest tells of his pathological compulsion, the camera zooms in on the window's chalice and Communion wafer or on the word "saint," alternating these religious symbols with shots of the priests' hands - those defiling hands - held in front of his crotch. Although the abuser and the reporter speak about the psychological nature of his "illness," the visual message draws a connection between the priesthood and its religious trappings (including celibacy) and pedophilia.

Priests and prelates deserve no special treatment from the press. But neither should the press go uncriticized when it fails to balance the competing interest of the public's right to know with its own responsibility to weigh the factual worth of accusations it is considering for public airing. In this case, CNN failed. Its story was not enterprising; it was mostly a rehash. Neither was it merely sensationalistic or exploitative. It was, rather, unfair and unprofessional. In no small measure, it depended on the now almost pervasive view that the Catholic church, along with other groups who defend culturally conservative values - especially in matters sexual, reproductive, and familial - is fair game for public pillorying.

We do not share the view that the media and other opinion leaders engage in systematic Catholic bashing. In this case we are persuaded that "Fall from Grace," and other shows like it - for there is a relentlessly repetitive quality to them - suspend their sense of fairness and professional standards. In the case of Catholic priests and clerical sexual abuse, the standard has become "guilty until proven innocent."

On the immediate issue, two points should be made. First, the priest pedophilia story and its repetitive airing (as if the church has made no significant effort to respond to it) can be terribly corrosive for the church itself, perhaps especially to the faith of the young who are hard pressed to admit allegiance to what CNN and other media paint as a corrupt and flamboyantly hypocritical body.

Second and even worse: If CNN's scoop plants the idea that anyone can accuse anyone else of sordid behavior and have the case tried in the press without presenting serious evidence, who will suffer the most in the end? The credibility of victims who have fought long to overcome the denial of church officials is at stake along with the hard-won church processes set in place for examining abuse charges. Victims deserve pastoral attention as well as compensation from the church. But acknowledging past wrong does not magically change the very complicated problems sexual abuse presents to its victims, to the church, and to those accused. Some conclude more or less automatically that a priest who has been accused must be guilty. Some even argue that the church should not resort to the legal system to defend a priest its own investigation concludes is innocent. But it is a curious logic that insists that legal safeguards for the accused are somehow unchristian. Due process, after all, is something the church needs more of, not less - as the experience of those who have been sexually abused so poignantly shows. Moreover, though seeking legal remedies should in no way be discouraged, victims should also recognize that the recompense they seek and deserve is not easily won from the legal system either.

Were it not for the press, specifically the National Catholic Reporter, this story might never have been told and the church never able to admit and come to terms with this terrible scourge. While victims and their advocates feel that there is still a long way to go, they should recognize that the media, in this case CNN, is no longer necessarily an ally in the process of disclosure, acknowledgment, recompense, and reconciliation.