Award-winning Canadian book's plot on abuse mirrors events

A book about sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church has won Canada's top prize for fiction, reports Ecumenical News International. The subject matter is particularly topical as the book is set in an area of Canada that was recently rocked by a decades-old sex abuse scandal involving charges against a bishop for child pornography.

Author Linden MacIntyre won the 50 000 Canadian dollar (US$48 000) 2009 Giller Prize for his novel, "The Bishop's Man". The book's first-person narrator, Father Duncan MacAskill, is the bishop's enforcer - often referred to as the Exorcist or the Purificator for his job of making troublesome priests "disappear" and suppressing evidence of sexual abuse within the church.

The story is set in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. When MacAskill is assigned to the parish where he grew up, the priest is forced to confront his own role in an unfolding scandal.

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TAGS: Canada sexual abuse Roman Catholic Church child pornography "The Bishop's Man" Linden MacIntyre

[12/05/2009]

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