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	Quelling Her Horror for Sake of Story No Remorse from Pedophile Priest By Peter Howell Toronto Star October 27, 2006 http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type 1&col=969483191630&c=Article&cid=1161899442412&call_pageid=968867495754 Amy Berg is a reporter's reporter. At CBS News, ABC News and CNN, she investigated social ills of every stripe: poverty, pollution, drug abuse, sexual assault, illegal doctors and more. Her dogged quest for truth, often dealing with difficult sources and subjects, has earned her two Emmy Awards. "I really like doing these investigative pieces," says the Los Angeles filmmaker and former TV producer. But nothing can top the six years of diligence that led to Deliver Us From Evil, Berg's shocking documentary inquiry into pedophile priests in the Roman Catholic Church. The film opens in Toronto today. Her four years reporting for CBS and CNN on the sex scandals in the L.A. Archdiocese, where more than 550 priests under the jurisdiction of Roger Cardinal Mahony have abused children, led Berg to track down and document the biggest offender of the lot. He's Oliver O'Grady, a former Catholic priest and convicted pedophile. For 22 years, from 1971 to 1993, he raped and sodomized dozens of children across northern California, moving from parish to parish to escape punishment for his sins. His Catholic superiors kept covering for him and excusing him, even after he'd written a letter of confession, until civil authorities stepped in and prosecuted. O'Grady spent seven years in prison in the 1990s. O'Grady now lives in Ireland on a full Church pension. Berg sought him out and persuaded him to tell his story, which is the subject of her debut film Deliver Us From Evil. She also spoke to some of O'Grady's victims, now grown to a difficult adulthood. It was almost more than Berg could bear. She isn't Catholic, but she is the mother of a young son. She wants the full story of O'Grady and his victims told in the hope that justice might still be served. She talked to the Star last month during the Toronto International Film Festival. QHow did you get O'Grady to talk on camera? AHe's somebody who wants to get his story out there. I feel in his mind he knows the right thing to do is to get it out and move on with his life. QHe doesn't strike me as being sincerely sorry. AYes, remorse doesn't seem right in his forefront at all. My explanation to that, which you see in the film, is when he's asked about his childhood and he says, "I can't seem to make a link." I think that explains it. If he were to admit that this actually disturbed him and it actually set a trend in his life, then he'd have to admit that what he did was wrong. QHe seems to have the same twisted thinking as serial killers, who are often said to totally disassociate themselves from their evil acts. AI feel the pain that he's hiding in himself is also the pain that he's perpetrated onto his victims. There has got to be some area in him that is raw and needing to address his own issues. Clearly he's a perfect candidate for a rehabilitation facility. QDo you really think he could be rehabilitated? ANo, but they do have a place in California which he was being considered for, but (the Church) didn't want to spend the money on it. It's a sex-offender treatment facility, and they don't necessarily come out of there. I think one guy has been released from there and he was castrated. This is becoming such a major problem everywhere, so I just think (O'Grady) would be great in a facility that monitored him, gave him therapy and took notes on him. QWas it hard to hold your own emotions in check? AI actually had an easier time interviewing him than with the victims ... that was like a knife in the gut. Listening to Bob Jyono (the father of abuse survivor Ann Jyono) talk about his guilt. He and his wife feel like they should have noticed what was happening. The priest was sleeping in their house. He was babysitting children. He was bathing them. He was reading them bedtime stories. Bob thinks of the things he should have done, the constant battle in his mind of everything that he did wrong with his daughter ... When you see a father breaking down about the things he missed, you relate to this as a parent. It's hard not to be emotional about it. QIt is startling to think that this abuse could go on for so long and that the Catholic Church has done so little. AYes, and it's almost worse than with the government. Because (Church superiors) don't have to adhere to common law. I don't think George Bush could get away with what Cardinal Mahony's gotten away with. Which is crazy to think about QDid you get any insights as to why there are so many pedophile priests? AWell, I think the best insights that I had were what this psychologist said about kids being brought into the priesthood at such a young age and not having an opportunity to develop their sexual selves. And that was clearly the case with Oliver, because he was already coming from an abusive situation and then he went into a place of refuge where that was permissible. He was abused over and over again by priests there. That's a common thread in a lot of the stories that I've heard. QWhat do you hope to accomplish? ATwo things. One is to clean up the Church, to really clean it up. The people who have been covering it up should get out, and not go to Rome and have a new church where they can abuse Italian boys. If George Bush were doing something like this, he would be taken out of office. The second thing is for people to look at this film and realize that the victims in it just want to talk about what happened to them. They want to come back to the Church. So if I could just open the door for them, then I'd be helping the Church, ultimately, because it would strengthen it to bring more people back into it. QDo you think the institution is more at fault than the individual? AYes. I think if you have an employee, he comes to you and he says, "I have a drug problem," and you hand him a bag of cocaine, where is the responsibility in that? QWhat reaction have you had to the film? AGreat. It's amazing. I feel like there's some kind of good karma attached to this film, as dark as it is, but the response has been so positive on all different levels, that it's great. People have been coming up to me after festival screenings saying, "Thank you so much. I'm Catholic, and this story needs to get out." That's the greatest thing you can hear. QHas O'Grady seen Deliver Us From Evil? ANo, and I'd like him to see it. I feel he needs to see what's going on. He needs to see what Bob Jyono feels on a daily basis. I don't know if it'll affect him or not, but I'm going to make sure that he at least gets it. I can't make him watch it, but I think he will ... because he's so vain.
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