Ryan Di Corpo

 U.S. District Judge David Estudillo ruled that the new law, previously set to take effect July 27, singled out clergy for breaking a vow of silence while allowing other professionals to maintain a seal of silence. 

The Association of U.S. Catholic Priests has asked the Vatican to safeguard the due process rights of accused clergy, and said bishops have violated canon law in disciplining some priests cited for misconduct.

One supporter says confession rewards priests for secrecy and that silence protects perpetrators of sex crimes, not victims.

The bombshell stories would mushroom into a controversy that would shake the very foundations of the worldwide Catholic Church. Many readers canceled their subscriptions.

"With Cardinal McCarrick's death, we lose one of the great villains of Roman Catholicism in the U.S.," said Colt Anderson, a Fordham professor who is writing a book on clericalism and the clergy sex abuse crisis.

An essential documentary that informs and infuriates in equal measure, "No Other Land," follows the destruction by Israeli forces of a West Bank community.

"Planetwalker" is a documentary about John Francis, an uncommon globetrotter who embarked on a yearslong trek for the environment, with 17 of those years observing a vow of silence.

A common thread runs through the lives of four major Catholic figures profiled in the first part of "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints": They each embody a faith with consequences, a devotion that demands sacrifice and suffering.

A quiet storm of a film about secrets and those who keep them, "Small Things Like These," starring Cillian Murphy, highlights the horrors of the not-so-distant past in Irish Catholicism.