If I'm remembering correctly, it was the girl who first told the priest under seal, and though he begged her to let him tell someone, she refused. That was fine, because a victim confiding in someone and then swearing them to secrecy, and the person wrestling with that, is believable, the seal of the confessional just added an extra dimension to it. It was the father working out what had happened and using the confessional to gloat that pushed it from drama to melodrama. The bit with the mother was, indeed, brutal, but her reaction to discovering the abuse suggested that she definitely had no idea.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-09-01 10:20 am (UTC)