We first meet John Spador as he settles into an easy chair, musing about his aging body and reflecting on the duties he had completed that day, from Mass at 6 A.M. to a dinner with fellow priests. There are hints of his darker side when his thoughts are interrupted by a deputy sheriff and a social worker at his door. What follows is Spador's fall from grace over his recent abuse of a young parishioner. While he and the young man are spared the public humiliation of a trial, the circumstances cause Spador to lose his parish and his status, forcing him to admit his failings to his sister and...