NEW YORK (NY)
America the Jesuit Review [New York NY]
February 13, 2026
By Jeannie Gaffigan
I never expected to be producing a show that stares straight at the Catholic Church’s crisis of sexual abuse and cover-up, but right now it feels necessary in a way I cannot ignore.
This piece is for anyone who has ever felt silenced, shamed or pressured to look away from something they knew was wrong. It is for Catholics, non-Catholics, ex-Catholics, people who are allergic to religion, people who have never stepped inside a church and people who have. Because the thing I am talking about is not “a Catholic issue.” It is a human one.
I am producing this special event surrounding the 2024 documentary film “Fox Chase Boy” because this feels like the right moment to tell the truth out loud, in a room, together. (Full disclosure: As a producer, I have helped provide the funds to stage this show and to allow ticket prices to be set at the minimum necessary to cover its costs.)
Let me explain what the night actually is, because it is not just a film screening.
Our February 2026 production of “Fox Chase Boy” is a hybrid event at Paradise Factory Theater. It begins with an exclusive screening of the short documentary“Fox Chase Boy” (2024), directed by Gerad Argeros and Kaya Dillon. After the film, there’s a live talkback with the filmmakers. Then we take a brief intermission, and this is the part I love: The stage becomes a reception with food and drink, and the audience is invited onto the stage. The room shifts. You are not sitting in the dark watching something from far away. You’re in it. It feels less like a formal theater night and more like being in someone’s home, eating, drinking, talking and sharing something honest and weird and special together. The art isn’t only what happens onstage. It’s what happens between people in the room when strangers become a community.
Then the incredible artist Gerad Argeros comes back and continues the story where the film left off. The film was cut short by the pandemic, but the live performance keeps going. And if you’ve never seen Gerad perform, you will be mesmerized. He is compelling, engaging, funny and heartbreaking, sometimes all in the same minute. His storytelling has this rare thing where you laugh and then you realize you’re also holding your breath while choking back tears. The live piece is still evolving, and surprises me every night, but that is part of the point. This is not a museum exhibit. It is a living thing.
So why now?
We are in a moment when a lot of people are done being quiet. Some people are taking to the streets, and honestly that is good. Unless you are Marie Antoinette. It didn’t work out that great for her. People are protesting. People are demanding accountability. People are trying, in real time, to figure out what it means to live in a country where power can look so untouchable and still do so much harm.
The truth is, we have been watching this pattern for years. Epstein. Institutions that knew, people who looked away, the idea that money, status and fear can build an impenetrable force field around evil. And right now, with the out-of-control actions of ICE and communities living in terror, you see that same feeling again. That sense that the system is huge and cold and impossible to break.
In moments like this, silence is how they win. That is my mantra now because it’s painfully true. (Full disclosure, I stole the line from Gerad.)
There is also new leadership in the Catholic Church. New leadership in Rome. New leadership in New York. I am not pretending that fixes anything. It doesn’t. But transitions matter. They create a crack in the wall. They create a moment where people can say: “OK, what happens next? Are we going to tell the truth now, or are we going to keep managing the optics?”
I also want to say this clearly because people get twitchy the second they hear the word Catholic.
I am Catholic, but when I say that, I’m not asking anyone to trust the institution. I’m not defending the church. I am not doing the “I’m one of the good ones” thing. I mean my spiritual and cultural tradition, the parts that shaped my language, my sense of ritual, my sense of humor, my idea of community. I also mean I am not willing to look away from what was done in that tradition’s name. I am also not ready to walk away from this part of my identity and start spitting in the wind as an outsider. Not yet.
You cannot be an American without acknowledging the atrocities committed in the name of America. If you pretend it didn’t happen, you are not patriotic; you are just in denial. Same thing here. If your faith requires you to ignore harm, it isn’t faith. It is a brainwashed cult of loyalty to power. And I reject that. Completely.
This project is not about creating “scandal.” It is not about attacking Catholics. It is not about some gotcha takedown. It is about what happens to human beings when shame and silence get baked into the walls of a community. It is about what happens when people are told, directly or indirectly, that the truth is “too much,” that it will “hurt the community,” that it will “ruin everything.” And then years go by, and the harm doesn’t go away. It just spreads.
I am a producer of comedy. And I’ll be honest, the horrific legacy of child sexual abuse and cover-up in the church is something I have had the urge to write about and talk about for years, but I could not find the words. How do you make the unspeakable speakable? I could not find the way in. I could not find the comedy, and if you work in comedy, you know that humor is not denial. It can be a way for people to survive the unbearable. It is how you tell the truth without turning into stone.
Gerad found a way to do that. By making the unspeakable so human and making us realize what happened to him really happened to all of us.
Theater is one of the last places where we can still sit together, in the same room, with our phones down (PLEASE), and actually feel something with other people. Going back to the Greeks, comedy and tragedy were never just entertainment. They were catharsis. They were communal truth-telling. They were a society processing what it didn’t want to face.
That is what I want this night to be. A place where we don’t look away. A place where we can laugh and breathe and listen. A place where people can feel less alone.
And maybe, for two hours, we practice being the kind of community that doesn’t protect power at the expense of people.
That’s why I’m doing “Fox Chase Boy” now.
“Fox Chase Boy” runs at Paradise Factory Theater (64 E 4th St, New York City) on Feb. 1 (5 p.m.), Feb. 4 (7 p.m.), Feb. 7 (7 p.m.), Feb. 11 (7 p.m.), Feb. 15 (5 p.m.), Feb. 18 (7 p.m.) and Feb. 22 (5 p.m.).