Boston Phoenix reporter Kristen Lombardi has received still more recognition for her groundbreaking 2001 work uncovering the link between the Archdiocese of Boston’s hierarchy and the Church’s predator priests. On April 11, the Massachusetts Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, a professional association of psychiatrists and psychotherapists who treat sex offenders, awarded Lombardi its Annual Media Award for her "outstanding investigative reporting shedding light on child sexual abuse."

In March of 2001, long before the Geoghan trial opened the media floodgates, Lombardi’s Phoenix investigation ("Cardinal Sin," News and Features, March 23, 2001) established that Bernard Cardinal Law had been aware of complaints against pedophile priests within the archdiocese since 1984, but had done nothing to stop it. Her investigation and several follow-up pieces published in 2001 have since won the praise of the Columbia Journalism Review, as well as a New England Press Association Award. "Cardinal Sin" is currently a local-coverage finalist in the 2002 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists, which are sponsored by the Mollie Parnis Livingston Foundation and administered by the University of Michigan.

Once again, congratulations to Lombardi.