I recently watched the film version of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Doubt. So impressed was I by the forceful manner in which the theme of clerical sex abuse was broached that I subsequently purchased and read the book. It relates the predatory seduction of a boy attending a Catholic primary school in the Bronx, New York, in 1964.

The plot revolves around how the principal of St Nicolas, Sr Aloysius Beauvier, suspects that the charismatic priest attached to the school, Fr Flynn, may well have sexual designs on Donald Mullen, her first black student. When Donald's teacher, Sr James, informs the principal that the boy came back from a visit to the rectory in a distressed state and with a smell of alcohol off his breath, Sr Aloysius immediately concludes that the priest, who is Donald's protector, is abusing him.

Finding concrete proof of the priest's misdemeanour will require courage and guile. As Sr Aloysius observes: ''There are parameters which protect him and hinder me.'' Nuns in 1964 were expected to treat priests with respect and deference. To accuse Fr Flynn of the sexual corruption of a minor without the requisite corroboration of the victim or his family could well lead to Sr Aloysius being removed from her job as principal.

There has been much discussion in the wake of the Murphy Report of how auxiliary bishops failed to stand against the dominant culture of 'cover up' when the first revelations of clerical sex abuse were made. We know that safeguarding the reputation and assets of the Church took precedence over acknowledging the suffering of victims and protecting others from the same fate. Shanley notes in the Preface to Doubt: ''When trust is the order of the day, predators are free to plunder. And plunder they did. As the ever widening Church scandals reveal, the hunters had a field day. And the shepherds, so invested in the surface, sacrificed actual good for perceived virtue.''

There were far too few people among the laity and clergy who had the strength of their convictions, the ability to see beyond the surface. Sr Aloysius answers Fr Flynn's question about the basis for her distrust of him with: ''I know people.'' She boldly plays her last card, telling the priest that she has been in touch with his previous parish and knows he has 'a history'. In reality, she has made no such contact, but, as she explains later to Sr James: ''In the pursuit of wrongdoing, one steps away from God.'' But there is a price to pay: St Nicolas may well be saved from the clutches of the evil priest, but he is promoted to the role of pastor in another school. A man whom Sr Aloysius rightly describes as ''a disgrace to the collar'', has the guile to charm Monsignor Benedict, who does not believes the nun's version of the story, and his bishop. Where have we heard that type of story before?

Eamon Maher is currently co-editing a book of essays on the Murphy Report with John Littleton for The Columba Press.