Father Herman Hoffman, a gifted and innocent young priest who, during his first parish appointment, gets swept up in the "Crisis" after witnessing child abuse in the parish rectory. When he reports the abuse, he is rebuffed by the archbishop and, vilified for denouncing a priest who has been "cleared" by the police, learns the harsh fate of the whistleblower in the contemporary Catholic Church. Later, forced to testify in a court hearing, Father Hoffman...

Critically-acclaimed author Donald Cozzens that takes us behind the scenes of the Roman Catholic Church for an unflinching look at clergy sexual abuse and its very personal consequences. Cozzens weaves an intricate story of scholars and trained killers, bishops and priests, church ladies and clandestine operatives struggling--each in their own way--to protect the institution they venerate or to blow the lid off the oldest boys' club in the world.