Authors Jason Berry (Lead Us Not into Temptation) and Gerald Renner (retired reporter for the Hartford Courant) team up for this highly accusatory report on the sex abuse scandal within the Catholic Church. The "vows of silence" speak to the Church's self-protective secrecy that made it possible to ignore the rampant abuse, despite all the early accusations and red flags. To reveal the history and scope of this problem, Berry and Renner expertly researched the parallel lives of two key players. The first one is Thomas Doyle, portrayed as an American hero priest. Doyle first heard about priests sexually abusing children in the early 1980s. Doyle immediately started to confront his superiors and blow the whistle at every turn. As early as 1983 Doyle wrote that the Church's secrecy caused any and all wrongdoings to be "denied, covered up and rationalized with equal zeal." Years later he became an advocate for! victim restitution, testifying against the Church in numerous court cases. The second character is more like the antichrist: Father Marcial Maciel, who was the influential founder of the cult-like order of Legionaries of Christ and accused of being a particularly cruel and long-term sexual predator.

This parallel lives approach makes for compelling storytelling, but it also creates a disjointed approach with much skipping around in time. What sets this apart from yet-another-expose about the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal is the in-depth reporting on the militaristic Legionaries of Christ, an extremely powerful and conservative order of priests and laymen that are affiliated with a worldwide web of prep schools and universities. Berry and Renner offer a fascinating conspiracy theory about how this international legion managed to protect its abusers and contribute to the long-term secrecy and cover-up. The bold accusations eventually land in the lap of Pope John Paul II, who seemed more invested in protecting the legion and the vow of silence than addressing the abuse. --Gail Hudson

From Publishers Weekly
This impassioned exposé explores the history of priestly pedophilia scandals, and their roots in what the authors portray as the Church's blinkered sexual morés and arrogant hierarchy, through profiles of two emblematic Church figures. The first is Thomas Doyle, an American priest who investigated abuses in the early 1980s; when his recommendations for reform were ignored, Doyle broke with the hierarchy and began testifying about the Church's cover-up. Doyle's antithesis is Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a secretive, fanatically disciplined order of conservative priests and laymen with a chain of universities and schools that critics liken to a cult. Lionized by John Paul II, Maciel is also a pedophile and Demerol addict, according to at least nine former priests and seminarians who claim they were victimized by him. Investigative journalists Berry and Renner build on years of research and hundreds of interviews to paint a portrait of ecclesiastical corruption. They blame the Church's sexual doctrines-particularly the rule on priestly celibacy, which, they contend, has driven away heterosexual men and fostered a pathologically libertine "gay priest culture" at some American seminaries. The result is an atmosphere of silence and hypocrisy that simultaneously condemns and tolerates both homosexuality and priestly sexual abuse, in which an authoritarian Church hierarchy, reaching up to the Vatican, protects pedophiles, and buries accusations in labyrinthine legal maneuvers. The book's sprawling, somewhat disorganized narrative sometimes bogs down amidst incidental characters and insignificant details, and the panorama of sordid sex crimes, quasi-fascist brainwashing and cynical Vatican mandarins may lead critics to accuse the authors, professed Catholics themselves, of retailing lurid anti-Catholic clichés. But their exhaustive reporting adds up to a disturbing indictment of a deeply troubled Church, and this book will no doubt cause much discussion and controversy. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Investigative journalists Berry and Renner's accessible resource on the sexual-abuse controversy in the Catholic Church is, on the one hand, the heroic story of priest and canon lawyer Thomas Doyle, a champion of abuse victims in their prolonged struggle with an often intransigent power structure, and, on the other, an expose of the secretive Legion of Christ and its lay counterpart, Regnum Christi, and legion founder Marciel Maciel Degollado, himself an accused abuser. Doyle, in his relations with victims and survivors, embodies what the church could be, while Degollado and the quasi-military legion stand for what it has become. The book effectively documents abuse and the role of secrecy in sustaining it, though Berry and Renner weaken their case by returning repeatedly to a largely undefined concept of a "gay clergy culture." Their evidence points to an institutional culture in which secrecy has underwritten abuse and the protection of abusers quite apart from sexual orientation. It will most interest readers trying to understand the sexual-abuse scandal and other institutional abuses of power. Steven Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Carl M. Cannon White House correspondent for National Journal Vows of Silence is a must read -- investigative journalism at its best, tracking abuses that were decades in the making and go far beyond the American clergy, with responsibility at the highest levels of the Vatican. Jason Berry and Gerald Renner are tough-minded, but fair; the book is painstakingly researched, beautifully written and gives sweeping historical context on issues of specific, current relevance. If this were fiction, it would be a chilling narrative. Alas, it's contemporary human history, brought to you by the two American authors who know more about this subject than anyone else writing about it.

Book Description
Going deep behind the headlines about scandals in the Catholic Church, Jason Berry and Gerald Renner's Vows of Silence follows the staggering trail of evasions and deceit that leads directly to the Vatican -- and taints the legacy of Pope John Paul II. Based on more than six years of investigative reporting and hundreds of interviews, this book is a riveting account of Vatican cover-ups and the tumult they have caused in the church worldwide. Both a profound criticism and a wake-up call to reform by two Catholic writers, Vows of Silence reveals an agenda of top-down control under John Paul II and a hierarchy so obsessed with secrecy as to spawn disinformation. Vows of Silence is not a book about sexual abuse; it is a book about abuse of power, throughout the Vatican. The book cuts between the life story of Father Tom Doyle, who sacrificed a diplomatic career with the Vatican to seek justice for sex-abuse victims, and Father Marcial Maciel, an accused pedophile and founder of the militaristic religious order, the Legion of Christ. One of the most mysterious and powerful men in the Catholic Church, Maciel has built a network of priests, lay people, and elite prep schools in more than twenty countries, using the Legion as a fundraising machine to position himself as a favored figure of John Paul II. In addition to accusations against Maciel of sexual abuse and of using Legion money for his own extravagant lifestyle, many ex-Legionaries claim that the order uses mind-control techniques to isolate seminarians and even priests from their families. And yet, because he enjoyed the protection of Pope John Paul II and members of the Roman Curia, charges against Maciel for sexual misconduct -- all of which he denies -- were blocked in the Vatican court system. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Father Doyle and with ex-Legionaries who filed a canonical suit against Maciel, as well as interviews with Vatican insiders and an array of sources in Mexico, Ireland, Canada, and Australia, the authors provide a penetrating account of a hierarchy directly in conflict with its followers. With keen insight and scrupulous reporting, Vows of Silence is a powerful narrative that chronicles the church's struggle between orthodoxy and reform -- going straight to the heart of one of the world's largest power structures.

Download Description
"Going deep behind the headlines about scandals in the Catholic Church, Jason Berry and Gerald Renner's Vows of Silence follows the staggering trail of evasions and deceit that leads directly to the Vatican -- and taints the legacy of Pope John Paul II. Based on more than six years of investigative reporting and hundreds of interviews, this book is a riveting account of Vatican cover-ups and the tumult they have caused in the church worldwide. Both a profound criticism and a wake-up call to reform by two Catholic writers, Vows of Silence reveals an agenda of top-down control under John Paul II and a hierarchy so obsessed with secrecy as to spawn disinformation. Vows of Silence is not a book about sexual abuse; it is a book about abuse of power, throughout the Vatican. The book cuts between the life story of Father Tom Doyle, who sacrificed a diplomatic career with the Vatican to seek justice for sex-abuse victims, and Father Marcial Maciel, an accused pedophile and founder of the militaristic religious order, the Legion of Christ. One of the most mysterious and powerful men in the Catholic Church, Maciel has built a network of priests, lay people, and elite prep schools in more than twenty countries, using the Legion as a fundraising machine to position himself as a favored figure of John Paul II. In addition to accusations against Maciel of sexual abuse and of using Legion money for his own extravagant lifestyle, many ex-Legionaries claim that the order uses mind-control techniques to isolate seminarians and even priests from their families. And yet, because he enjoyed the protection of Pope John Paul II and members of the Roman Curia, charges against Maciel for sexual misconduct -- all of which he denies -- were blocked in the Vatican court system.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Going deep behind the headlines about scandals in the Catholic Church, Jason Berry and Gerald Renner's Vows of Silence follows the staggering trail of evasions and deceit that leads directly to the Vatican -- and taints the legacy of Pope John Paul II. Based on more than six years of investigative reporting and hundreds of interviews, this book is a riveting account of Vatican cover-ups and the tumult they have caused in the church worldwide. Both a profound criticism and a wake-up call to reform by two Catholic writers, Vows of Silence reveals an agenda of top-down control under John Paul II and a hierarchy so obsessed with secrecy as to spawn disinformation. Vows of Silence is not a book about sexual abuse; it is a book about abuse of power, throughout the Vatican. The book cuts between the life story of Father Tom Doyle, who sacrificed a diplomatic career with the Vatican to seek justice for sex-abuse victims, and Father Marcial Maciel, an accused pedophile and founder of the militaristic religious order, the Legion of Christ. One of the most mysterious and powerful men in the Catholic Church, Maciel has built a network of priests, lay people, and elite prep schools in more than twenty countries, using the Legion as a fundraising machine to position himself as a favored figure of John Paul II.

In addition to accusations against Maciel of sexual abuse and of using Legion money for his own extravagant lifestyle, many ex-Legionaries claim that the order uses mind-control techniques to isolate seminarians and even priests from their families. And yet, because he enjoyed the protection of Pope John Paul II and members of the Roman Curia, charges against Maciel for sexual misconduct -- all of which he denies -- were blocked in the Vatican court system. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Father Doyle and with ex-Legionaries who filed a canonical suit against Maciel, as well as interviews with Vatican insiders and an array of sources in Mexico, Ireland, Canada, and Australia, the authors provide a penetrating account of a hierarchy directly in conflict with its followers. With keen insight and scrupulous reporting, Vows of Silence is a powerful narrative that chronicles the church's struggle between orthodoxy and reform -- going straight to the heart of one of the world's largest power structures.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

Investigative journalists Berry (Lead Us Not into Temptation) and Renner (recently retired from the Hartford Courant) spent six years tracking patterns of clerical sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church. This powerful and well-researched book focuses on two figures: former Vatican diplomat/canon lawyer Thomas Doyle, a Dominican friar and heroic defender of abuse victims; and Marcial Maciel, Mexican priest-founder of the militaristic religious order Legion of Christ, who has been investigated by the Vatican for pedophilia and whose organization has promoted close ties with John Paul II. The media generally views Church practices, which attempt to avoid scandal for both accused and accusers, as secretive, even stonewalling. In addition, the differences in approach between the Vatican, which prefers secret trials, and the American bishops, who do not, have delayed justice and exacerbated victims' suffering. While examining these legal practices, the authors make a compelling case against the legion's controversial activities in controlling several U.S. diocesan schools. Written in the hope of helping the Church continue to reform itself, the book is highly recommended for public and academic libraries, and especially for parents and religious leaders.-Anna M. Donnelly, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

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