BishopAccountability.org
	Exceptional 'Deliver Us' Asks Church to Account By Carrie Rickey Philadelphia Inquirer October 27, 2006 http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/entertainment/weekend/15857788.htm With his smiling eyes and silver nimbus of hair, the Rev. Oliver O'Grady looked like a parish priest straight out of central casting. The music of his Irish brogue inspired trust and faith. "He was the perfect example of what you thought a priest should be," recalls Maria Jyono, a pious Catholic from Lodi, Calif. Jyono speaks in the past tense because, between the ages of 5 and 12, her daughter, Ann, was raped regularly by "Father Ollie." Ann, now 40, wasn't the only child violated by this sexual and spiritual predator. Deliver Us From Evil, Amy Berg's courageous, shattering and exceptional documentary, chronicles O'Grady's 20 years of pastoral service in California. During this time, he molested dozens of parishioners, including a 9-month-old infant and the mother of one of his teenage victims. With his soft-spoken voice and gentle manner, it is easy to see how he ingratiated himself to so many. Although congregants reported O'Grady to then-Bishop Roger Mahony and to the police, representatives of his eminence (now cardinal of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles) reassigned him to successive parishes, reassuring authorities that O'Grady wouldn't be near children. The promise was broken. The appointment of O'Grady as parish pastor was like sending a hungry wolf to tend the flock. Berg's film is in part the confession of O'Grady, who was defrocked, convicted and served time before returning to his native Ireland. It includes the official denials of the church hierarchy that enabled him to commit his heinous crimes. Most powerfully, Berg gives voice to his victims, who still struggle with the double loss of childhood and of faith. Berg, a CBS and CNN producer, lets her subjects tell the story in their own words, permitting viewers to judge the evidence without coercive voice-over. Her sensitive and unsensational approach makes it all the more wrenching as she explores the individual pathology and the larger institutional cover-up that made possible Father Ollie's heinous acts. When O'Grady serenely confesses a PG version of his transgressions, it sounds more like mischief than molestation. Here Berg intercuts his videotaped court testimony, in which the prosecutor asks if O'Grady has a diagnosis of disassociative behavior, which may explain, but not excuse, his inability to show remorse. But Father Ollie wants to beg forgiveness, using Berg as his emissary. When he writes letters to his victims, Berg intercuts their reactions to receiving the missives, drama enough for an Old Testament's worth of tragedy. This would be enough for most documentarians, but not for Berg, whose film demands to know why O'Grady's superiors did not immediately remove him from his post. One observer, the Rev. Tom Doyle, a canon lawyer, suggests that Mahony's ambition to rise in the church hierarchy made him quick to cover up any problems in his jurisdiction. As appalling as O'Grady's acts were, the denials and inconsistencies of Mahony as to what he knew and when he knew it smack of Watergate. (In Mahony's jurisdiction, there are 556 priests charged with sexual abuse.) Berg features a clip of Sen. Frank Keating, frustrated by his investigation of pedophile priests, likening the Catholic Church to the Cosa Nostra in its institutional impenetrability. Deliver Us doesn't vilify the church - in fact, the film's most moving sequence is that of Ann Jyono praying at the Vatican, where Pope Benedict's retainers will not accept a letter she has written about her experiences. For many of the people Berg interviews, it is the church's apparent lack of accountability and transparency that leaves the faithful vulnerable to a figure like O'Grady. When Berg photographs O'Grady strolling through Dublin in close proximity to children, he is a figure as frightening as Hannibal Lecter and the father in Capturing the Friedmans put together. As for Cardinal Mahony, he comes off as a combination of Michael Corleone and Richard Nixon. If Berg's movie were a newspaper story, it would win the Pulitzer Prize for public service. Deliver Us From Evil **** (out of four stars) Produced by Amy Berg, Frank Donner, Hermas Lassalle and Matthew Cooke, written and directed by Berg, photography by Jacob Kusk and Jens Schlosser, music by Mick Harvey and Joseph Arthur, distributed by Lionsgate Films. Running time: 1 hour, 51 mins. Oliver O'Grady... Himself Bob Jyono... Himself Maria Jyono... Herself Ann Jyono... Herself The Rev. Tom Doyle... Himself Parent's guide: Not rated (verbal accounts of sexual abuse) Playing at: Ritz at the Bourse, Ritz Sixteen/NJ Contact movie critic Carrie Rickey at 215-854-5402 or crickey@phillynews.com.
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