Ep. 4.50: Crisis in the Church: The First Waves of the Storm

This episode opens Chapter Nine with a sober, unflinching look at the earliest tremors of the clergy sexual abuse crisis—long before 2002 made it a national reckoning. Monsignor Witt traces the disturbing histories of priests like Gilbert Gauthe, James Porter, and John Geoghan, showing how patterns of abuse, misplaced trust in psychological “cures,” and catastrophic administrative decisions allowed predators to move from parish to parish unchecked. As the Boston Globe’s reporting ignites public outrage, the episode also examines how the St. Louis Post‑Dispatch began its own barrage of coverage, shaping local perception and fueling anxiety among clergy and laity alike. Monsignor Witt explains how bishops first attempted to understand the problem, how early reports misdiagnosed the crisis as simple pedophilia, and how the Church’s slow response set the stage for the seismic collapse of trust that would follow.