The main story on the Daily Beast right now has a headline worthy of a supermarket checkout lane: "Chicago Priests Raped & Pillaged for 50 Years." The author, Barbie Latza Nadeau, gives the impression that she has examined a good portion of the fifteen thousand pages of files released by the Archdiocese of Chicago yesterday morning. She has read all about "accusations against perverted priests." She's seen "handwritten letters penned by worried mothers," and "emails sent decades after the abuses occurred." She's squinted at "letters so old the mimeographed typewriting is smudged." She's even read "emails so recent, they call into question just how much of the clerical abuse is still going on." This careful research has provided Nadeau with the following insight:

The allegations include accusations of priests plying young victims with alcohol and cigarettes, of fondling, masturbating, and performing oral sex on minors, and a strong current of denial and well-documented coverup by the church that can be traced all the way to Rome.

Her proof? "Take the case of Father Gregory Miller, whose 275-page dossier is filled with congratulatory letters of advancement within the archdiocese," Nadeau writes, noting that the file is also "dotted with frequent warnings of misconduct." She details the first accusation, then reports, "A few years later, Miller's assignment as a parish priest was renewed." And "in 2012," according to Nadeau, "a new complainant wrote an email to Leah McCluskey of the Chicago Archdiocese’s abuse committee." She continues: "More disturbing still, despite what were clearly repeat allegations, the archdiocese’s vicar general, John Canary, wrote the errant priest to tell him that he was not to be alone with anyone under age 18, seemingly apologizing for the trouble."

It all sounds so familiar, doesn't it? Victims' allegations falling on deaf ears. Church officials protecting, even promoting, priests they knew posed a threat to children. Tone-deaf churchmen praising a man who deserved jail time instead of congratulations. And this story would certainly merit the outrage it is meant to inspire, if Nadeau's narrative were true. But, as a review of the Miller file makes clear, her version of events is about as valuable as the paper it isn't printed on.

She has the timeline completely wrong. First, Nadeau presents the details of the allegation: “while in Fr. Miller’s quarters in the rectory, he instructed XX to remove his clothes..." She informs the reader that they appear on page 105 of the Miller file. Then she claims that "a few years later," Miller's parish assignment was renewed. But the allegations she quotes appear in a July 11, 2012, "Summary Timeline of Allegation." In fact, after these allegations came to light, Miller never had another parish assigment. She then goes on to cite "another congratulatory letter in which the clearly improper priest is appointed to serve a second term as pastor of Saint Bernadette"--but that letter was written in 2007, five years before the archdiocese had learned of the allegation.

Second, there was only one allegation, not "clearly repeat allegations," as Nadeau falsely claims. (Protip: Someone who has to keep telling you how clear their points are probably isn't too clear on the facts.) The accusation that appears in that July 11, 2012, "Summary Timeline" she cites first came to the attention of the archdiocese in an e-mail that was sent on June 22, 2012:

To whom,
After having watched, and been wrenched by the Jerry Sandusky/Penn State story…I have a story to tell. Please contact me at REDACTED. It goes back to 1972-73 at a parish in South Berwyn.

It's not clear why Nadeau is so confused about this. The Miller file contains several "Victim Statement Abstracts." In all of them there is only one victim who is identified as "LT." Other documents in the file confirm that Miller had just one accuser, and that he was the author of the June 22, 2012, e-mail.

Here is what really happened, according to the Miller dossier: Leah McClusky, then director of the Archdiocese of Chicago's Office for Child Abuse Investigations and Review, followed up with the author of the e-mail three days after he sent it. He met with McClusky in order to "formalize" the complaint on June 26. McClusky then shared the allegation with several diocesan officials, including the vicar general at the time, John Canary. Because Cardinal George was out of the country, Canary took the interim action of barring Miller from entering any diocesan school, ordering him not to be alone with anyone under the age of eighteen, and making him leave his parish.

The allegation was forwarded to civil authorities (presumably no action was taken because the alleged abuse had taken place decades earlier). Within days, the archdiocese's sexual-abuse review board considered the case and ordered an investigation by a private firm. Once the results came back, the board determined that the accusation met the standard of "reasonable cause to suspect" that it was true. That was September 15, 2012. McClusky kept the victim informed of the progress of the investigation. Announcements were made at Miller's former parish. And he never returned to ministry.

Nadeau darkly interprets Canary's line cautioning Miller not to view the ministerial restrictions as a judgment of guilt, but that was nothing more than canonical tail-covering. If the archdiocese had put a foot wrong canonically, and Miller decided to play hardball in a canon-law trial, he could have made things difficult for the archdiocese. But that never happened--because Miller chose not to contest the accusation.

He offered Cardinal George his resignation on September 18, 2012, and subsequently entered a monitoring program that restricted his ministry (he could not act as a priest at all), his contact with minors (never without another adult around), his travel (had to be pre-approved), which parishes he could visit (none where he served), the time he had to be home at night (9:00), the age of those he communicated with by phone, e-mail, or letter (no one under twenty-five), his financial expenditures (he had to submit phone and credit-card bills to a supervisor), and even where he could recreate (not at public parks or other "child-oriented destinations"). If he failed to abide by those structures, he could be polygraphed, forced to move, barred from leaving the archdiocese, or involuntarily laicized.

There is no shortage of clergy-abuse cases that fit the depressing story we're all too accustomed to: accusation, denial, coverup. Some may even appear in the 21,000 pages of documents released by the Archdiocese of Chicago. But the Miller case isn't one of them. Instead of showing a diocese bent on shielding a dangerous priest from public scrutiny, the Miller file shows church officials who acted quickly, thoroughly, and with compassion. That's not the stuff of a Daily Beast headline. But it might be news.