DR. CUMMINGS: "I'm mad as hell!"

Two recent movies have my blood boiling: "Spotlight," the story of the Catholic leadership cover-up of priestly pedophilia in Boston, and "13 Hours," the story of the Obama administration cover-up of the Benghazi murders.

The CIA chief at the time of the Benghazi attack has stated there was no "stand-down order" that could have saved our four Americans, but former Special Officer Kris Paronto, one the CIA men who actually fought that night but couldn't move in as quickly as he wanted, has said: "We were told to 'stand down;' those words were used verbatim."

Which one do you believe?

It was the same in Boston in the 1990s. Hundreds of small schoolchildren were being sexually abused by the very priests who taught them religion. The children told their parents, and the parents told their pastors and the pastors told the cardinal, but our ecclesiastical spinmasters made sure nothing was done. Just like Benghazi.

Think of the Americans who made it into Benghazi that night with the mortars flying over their heads and the organized Libyan troops bombarding them on every side, and then hearing their stateside wives on the phone saying that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says it was only a "small demonstration based on a video," and when challenged by Congress she blurted out: "What difference does it make?"

That's the way it was in Boston in the 1990s. Almost 1,400 priests worked in the parishes and the schools throughout the city and were loved by all. The vast majority of Bostonians were Catholics and the city had its own cardinal, a man named Bernard Law. All the priests suffered (and still do) under the burden of enforced celibacy, but nearly half of them had loving sexual partners (in secret, of course). Actually, only a small percentage were mentally ill and became sexual abusers of small children, or pedophiles; so, what difference does it make?

A small percentage: 5 percent, but a big number: 70. Seventy men who were treated like princes by the townspeople until they were caught abusing their children. But then these "men of god" were protected and hidden by the Catholic policemen and the cardinal himself. All the court records were sealed, and these perverts continued to function as the cardinal moved them from one parish to the next.

I think of the hundreds of small boys and girls who were victims of these crimes and I want to cry. And then I think of their parents, many of whom were paid large sums of money by the church to remain quiet, and I'm embarrassed. And then I think of the Boston Globe, The Telegraph of Boston, which kept this story quiet for 10 years because they feared losing their Catholic readers, and I want to throw rocks.

And finally, I think of Cardinal Bernard Law, who is the same age I am. He attended the same kind of seminary, studied the same authors, recited the same prayers and was ordained into the same Catholic priesthood. For 10 years, as the head of the Catholic Church in Boston, he listened to his canon lawyers (who were sworn to secrecy) tell him about the growing cesspool in his front yard, but he continued to cover it up. He waited as hundreds of boys and girls grew up totally confused and mentally threatened and spiritually ruined, and he did nothing! And I want to strangle him! Yes, I'm angry. I'm angry that "people in power" in both the church and in government can spin the truth to embellish their hidden agenda, and then get away with it.

When the Boston Globe finally hired a Jewish editor in the year 2002 and exposed this horrendous Catholic scandal, Cardinal Law resigned. Well, he resigned as the head of the church in Boston, but then he moved to a beautiful Italian palace called Palazzo della Cancelleria, not too far from the Roman Pantheon, where he lives today.

Even though the Benghazi scandal has been exposed by soldiers who were actually there, nobody has resigned and the "political spin" continues to this day. I can now relate to the movie "Network," where people all over the country opened their apartment windows on that epiphany-like night and shouted: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

I'm mad as hell, too.

How about you?

Dr. Bill Cummings is the CEO of Cummings Consolidated Corporation and Cummings Management Consultants. His blog is www.progressiveheretic.com.

This story was originally published January 23, 2016 at 9:25 PM with the headline "DR. CUMMINGS: "I'm mad as hell!" ."