Mixed signals?

In today's New York Times, I read here about the huge (more than $600 million) global settlement to which the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed in about 500 abuse-allegation cases.  (How much is that for Mr. Raymond Boucher, "the lawyer who is representing 242 of the plaintiffs in the Los Angeles cases"?).

Then, over in the book-review section, I read this glowing review (one of many the book has received) of Andrew O'Hagan's "Be Near Me," a sensitive and sympathetic portrayal (I'm told) of a depressed, middle-aged priest, who misses his glory days as a university aesthete and who gets intimately involved with a working-class, not-so-innocent 15-year-old boy.  After the priest is caught, we are told by the reviewer, he falls victim to the town's "anarchic spite", its "brief spasm of righteousness", and we are (apparently) left wondering "[s]o why are two people alone, in a rectory, murmuring over a nice potage, finally not enough?"

Strange times.

UPDATE:  Read our own Steve Bainbridge, on the L.A. settlement, here.