Judgment (1990 film)

1990 television film directed by Tom Topor

Judgment

Genre| Drama
Written by| Tom Topor
Directed by| Tom Topor
Starring| Keith Carradine
Blythe Danner
Jack Warden
David Strathairn
Michael Faustino
Music by| Cliff Eidelman
Country of origin| United States
Original language| English
Production
Executive producer| Steve Tisch
Producer| Rob Hershman
Cinematography| Elemer Ragalyi
Editor| Cynthia Scheider
Running time| 90 minutes
Production company| HBO Pictures
Original release
Network| HBO
Release| October 13, 1990 (1990-10-13)

Judgment is an HBO television film. It was first broadcast on October 13, 1990, and was written and directed by Tom Topor. The film's tagline is "No one stands beyond the reach of the law, not even the Church."

## Plot

[edit]

The sexual abuse of minors by priests is the delicate issue to be handled by Peter and Emmeline Guitry, devout Catholics in a small town in Louisiana whose lives are shattered when their son Robbie reveals that he has been sexually abused by their priest, Father Frank Aubert. Along with other parents in the parish, they begin a persistent but painful campaign to remove Aubert from the clergy, and have him prosecuted as a sex offender. The Catholic Church attempts to cover up the abuse and place Aubert back in the parish, causing a nationally publicized lawsuit.

## Cast

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* Keith Carradine as Pete Guitry
* Blythe Danner as Emmeline Guitry
* Jack Warden as Claude Fortier
* David Strathairn as Father Frank Aubert
* Michael Faustino as Robbie Guitry
* Crystal McKellar as Sabine Guitry
* Bob Gunton as Monsignor Beauvais
* Dylan Baker as Father Delambre
* Mitchell Ryan as Dave Davis
* Robert Joy as Mr. Hummel
* Steve Hofvendahl as Daniel Broussard
* Mary Joy as Madeleine Broussard
* Kimberli Bronson as Miss Haver

## Reception

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Washington Post movie critic Tom Shales called the film "a competent, compelling docudrama, but also one of those squirm-inducing films that seem, when it's all over, not worth the discomfort."[1] Chris Willman of the Los Angeles Times wrote: "Ultimately 'Judgment' stops a little short of the judgments it seems prepared to make..."[2] The Baltimore Sun's Steve McKerrow concluded, "the film grapples pretty well with its troubling topic."[3]

Kenneth R. Clark, writing in the Chicago Tribune, talked with the film's producer, Rob Hershman about the story's origins. In 1984, Hershman found a one paragraph newspaper summary of Louisiana priest Gilbert Gauthe's plea agreement and chose to cover the story on the CBS News news program West 57th Street. Tom Topor, who had previously written about rape in The Accused and about pedophilia in Nuts chose to write the screenplay about a fictional character similar to Gauthe and direct the project for HBO Films.[4] Clark neither praised the film nor panned it, but pointed out "only HBO, with no advertisers to worry about and no public pressure groups to appease, would dare to run it."[4]

## Awards

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* The director and writer Tom Topor won the Writers Guild of America award for his work on Judgment.

## References

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1. ^ Shales, Tom (13 October 1990). "'JUDGMENT'". The Washington Post. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
2. ^ Willman, Chris (13 October 1990). "TV REVIEW : Can a Trusted Institution Avoid 'Judgment'? : Television: Church bureaucracy structures shelter for itself and a fallen priest in HBO movie taken from life". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
3. ^ McKerrow, Steve (October 13, 1990). "HBO movie 'Judgment' raises troubling sensitive questions". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved May 15, 2021.
4. ^ a b Clark, Kenneth R. (October 11, 1990). "Docudrama Tells of Priest's Pedophilia". The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 15 May 2021.

## External links

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* Judgment at IMDb

* v
* t
* e

Catholic Church sexual abuse cases

Cases|

| By context|

* In confession

|

By country|

* Argentina
* Austria
* Australia
* Belgium
* Canada
* Chile
* El Salvador
* Germany
* Ireland
* Italy
* Poland
* Mexico
* New Zealand
* United Kingdom
* United States
* Venezuela

By religious
institute|

* English Benedictine Congregation
* Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God
* Christian Brothers
* Legion of Christ
* Salesian order
* Sisters of Mercy
* Society of Jesus

By clerical
rank|

| Cardinals|

* Hans Hermann Groër (1998)
* Stanisław Dziwisz (1998)
* Bernard Francis Law (2002)
* Angelo Sodano (2010)
* Keith O'Brien (2015)
* Edward Egan (2018)
* Theodore McCarrick (2019)
* Ricardo Ezzati (2019)

|

Bishops|

* Joseph Keith Symons (1998)
* Anthony O'Connell (2002)
* Juliusz Paetz (2002)
* Georg Müller (2009)
* Raymond Lahey (2012)
* Józef Wesołowski (2013)
* Marco Órdenes Fernández (2018)
* Francisco José Cox (2018)
* Gonzalo Duarte García de Cortázar (2018)
* Cristián Caro Cordero (2018)
* Franco Mulakkal (2018)
* Juan Barros Madrid (2018)
* Philip Wilson (2018)
* Edward Joseph Adams (2019)

Priests|

* Category:Catholic priests convicted of sexual abuse

Responses|

| Catholic
Church|

| Holy See|

* Roman Curia
* Crimen sollicitationis (1962)
* The Role of the Church in the Causation, Treatment and Prevention of the Crisis in the Priesthood (1971)
* Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations (2005)
* Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (2014)
* Vatican sexual abuse summit (2019)
* Vos estis lux mundi [2019]

|

US Conference of
Catholic Bishops|

* Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People (2002)
* John Jay Report (2004)

Other|

* Settlements and bankruptcies (since 1994)
* Virtus (1998)
* Hussey Commission (2002)

See also|

* Parish transfers of abusive Catholic priests (c. 1956–2011)

Governments|

* Hughes Inquiry
* Ferns Report
* Ryan Commission
* McCoy Report
* McCullough Report
* Murphy Report
* Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report
* Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

Activists|

* Duplessis Orphans
* Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
* Voice of the Faithful
* Barbara Blaine
* David Clohessy
* Mitchell Garabedian
* Eric MacLeish
* Richard Sipe
* Phil Saviano

Pre-modern|

* Liber Gomorrhianus
* Katharina von Zimmern

Popular
culture|

* Judgment (1990 film)
* The Boys of St. Vincent (1992 miniseries)
* Sinéad O'Connor on Saturday Night Live (1992)
* Primal Fear (1996 film)
* Sex in a Cold Climate (1998 documentary)
* States of Fear (1999 documentary)
* "Red Hot Catholic Love" (2002 South Park episode)
* Suing the Pope (2002 documentary)
* The Magdalene Sisters (2002 film)
* Cardinal Secrets (2002 documentary)
* Song for a Raggy Boy (2004 film)
* Holy Water-Gate (2004 documentary)
* Twist of Faith (2004 documentary)
* Bad Education (2004 film)
* Our Fathers (2005 film)
* Sex Crimes and the Vatican (2006 documentary)
* Deliver Us from Evil (2006 film)
* Hand of God (2006 documentary)
* Doubt (2008 film)
* Brendan Smyth: Betrayal of Trust (2011 documentary)
* In the Name of the Son (2012 film)
* Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012 documentary)
* Secrets of the Vatican (2014 documentary)
* Perfect Obedience (2014 film)
* Spotlight (2015 film)
* The Club (2015 film)
* The Keepers (2017 documentary miniseries)
* Romans (2017 film)
* Clergy (2018 film)
* By the Grace of God (2019 film)
* Prey (2019 film)
* Tell No One (2019 documentary)
* Procession (2021 documentary)

Related|

* Debate on the causes of clerical child abuse
* Media coverage of Catholic sexual abuse cases
* Clericalism
* Homosexual clergy in the Catholic Church
* Anti-Catholicism
* Criticism of the Catholic Church
* In literature and media

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*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template
*[c.]: circa