Father Herman Hoffman, a gifted and innocent young priest who, during his first parish appointment, gets swept up in the "Crisis" after witnessing child abuse in the parish rectory. When he reports the abuse, he is rebuffed by the archbishop and, vilified for denouncing a priest who has been "cleared" by the police, learns the harsh fate of the whistleblower in the contemporary Catholic Church. Later, forced to testify in a court hearing, Father Hoffman faces exile not only from his parish but from the priesthood itself.