"High-ranking prelates protected 58 colleagues from disgrace rather than protecting children from these predator priests."

Mr. Burton said in an interview that the law was not directed at "the holy Roman Catholic Church," but said it ought to be held accountable for reassigning predator priests to work with children.

They portray a predator priest stammering out apologies, grudgingly discussing his sexual disorder and trying to appease his angry victim.

In "The Crime of Father Amaro," directed by Carlos Carrera, he played a predator priest who has an affair with a teenager and sends her to her death in a clandestine abortion clinic.

There is no evidence so far that predator priests are more common than predator teachers or predator doctors or predator journalists.

Now well known are the patterns of abuse perpetrated by predator priests, and the stunning complicity of some bishops who covered up these serial crimes and reassigned the priests to parishes filled with unsuspecting children.

While "Betrayal" includes vivid profiles of predator priests, their victims and the prosecuting attorneys (many of whom are postdeferential Catholics), the central figure in the drama is Cardinal Law himself.

While some American bishops transferred predator priests from parish to parish, the leader of one diocese, Bishop Donald W. Wuerl of Pittsburgh, battled for seven years to remove a sexually abusive priest from the ministry.

The nation's Roman Catholic bishops decided today to bar any priest who has ever sexually abused a minor from ministerial duties, acknowledging in anguished debate that with the eyes of the world on them they could no longer offer any protection to predator priests.

When asked if she thought Bishop McCormack was doing everything he could to protect children from predator priests, she said, "I think he was trying to do the impossible and trying to do that with priest brothers."