Broken Covenant

The allegations of sexual misconduct that forced Covenant House founder Father Bruce Ritter to step down as acting head of the nation’s largest runaway youth shelter organization earlier this month may also have derailed plans for a Disney TV movie based on his life.

John Kells, veep, Covenant House Communications, learned last week that a Disney TV project “about Father Bruce and the founding of Covenant House,” initiated several months ago, has been dropped by Disney.

Kells says the priest had meetings last year with Disney reps, including Garth Ancier, network TV production prez, and that Disney had talked to several producers and directors about the project.

However, unknown to Kells, Disney’s interest in the proposed movie, conceived as a special installment of “The Magical World of Disney,” ended three months ago, about the time the scandal broke. Neither Ancier nor John Litvack, the exec in charge of the series, would talk to us. “There were preliminary discussions about (the project) but it never came to anything,” says a Disney spokeswoman, who adds that the project was “not necessarily” dropped because of the scandal.

Father Ritter, who built Covenant House into what it is, is under investigation by both his Franciscan order and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office for possible financial improprieties in connection with an alleged sexual relationship with a former Covenant House resident. Two other young men have also publicly accused the priest of sexual impropriety.