An award-winning journalist explores the alleged double life of the founder of Covenant House, examines the charges against Father Ritter, and interviews the young street kids he is accused of seducing. Reprint.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Examines the scandals that precipitated the disgrace of the founder of Manhattan's Covenant House.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
All Together Now - e phe bo PHE' lia,
This review is from: Broken Covenant (Mass Market Paperback)
In BROKEN COVENANT, Charles M. Sennott presents the story of New York based charity, Covenant House, and its founder, Catholic Priest Father Bruce Ritter. Covenant House was originally founded in the late 60's as a shoestring operation on New York's Lower East Side, its mission to provide shelter for homeless street teenagers. There is little doubt that Ritter was sincere in his desire to help this population and that he considered his work to be in keeping with his Franciscan vows.
But Ritter had serious character flaws which eventually caused his downfall. One of these was a combination of pride, arrogance, and a lust for power. These traits led Ritter to accept to accept massive amounts of financial aid and organizational input from wealthy donors, who, with Ritter's acquiescence, led the eventual transformation of Covenant House from a homeless shelter for young people into a huge non-profit corporation whose basic reason for existence seems to have been fund raising and expansion. And as the organization prospered, Ritter began to use some of the money as his own personal slush fund. Ritter's second major flaw was that he was an ephebophile, an adult sexually obsessed with post-pubescent teenagers, in his case males. Of course given the demographic targeted by Covenant House, a demographic with which Ritter's involvement was certainly not coincidental, the priest was in a heaven on earth, and he took advantage of his situation. It was discovered in the course of the 1989 investigation which led to Ritter's downfall that he had been molesting boys ever since he began the operation in the 60's. Though he was not charged with any crimes due to statutes of limitations, he resigned in disgrace, leaving others to rehabilitate Covenant House. Sennott was the lead reporter for the New York Post, the paper which broke the story. He has professionally written a knowledgeable, fast paced, well researched, and entertaining history of Father Ritter's rise and fall. While not mandatory reading, I highly recommend BROKEN COVENANT to anyone who finds the subject interesting.
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