Film Takes Sex Abuse Guilt to the Vatican

By Tim Kroenert
Eureka Street
March 20, 2013

http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=35525

[with video]

The sexual abuse of children by religious is by its nature an emotional, as well as profoundly ethical, moral, spiritual and criminal issue. Films and documentaries about this subject will therefore necessarily appeal to the emotions of the viewer. This can be to their detriment, if the emotional appeal is emphasized over factual detail.

The 2007 film Deliver Us From Evil fell into this trap; an emotionally harrowing film that leaned heavily on the extensive and graphic testimony of one offending (and only self-interestedly repentant) priest, while failing at times to substantiate some of its more outlandish claims. This is the kind of sensationalism that feeds prejudices and arguably does more to exploit victims than to help them.

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House of God, by contrast, achieves a balance between its powerful emotional appeal and its integrity as a piece of investigative filmmaking.

It begins with a particular case study, that of Fr Lawrence Murphy, a key supporter and later head of a school for deaf boys in Milwaukee. Director Gibney interviews the now adult victims of Murphy, whose atrocities at the school during the late 1960s and 1970s included using the confessional as a kind of lair in which to abuse boys.

After charting in some detail the events at this school and the failure of local church authorities to protect the boys, Gibney broadens the scope to look at the wider American and international contexts, tracing the threads of complicity in neglect or outright cover-ups as far as the halls of the Vatican itself.

One reviewer at the screening I attended left the cinema declaring that the evidence was in: 'Ratzinger is to blame!' The reality, even as detailed here, is rather more complex than that, although the film does little to restore faith in the existing governance structures. Certainly the director's sympathies are firmly with the victims.

The now adult victims sign their stories 'loudly' and clearly (aided by voiceovers from seasoned screen actors) and relate their ongoing efforts to achieve justice. Four decades ago and inspired by the protests of the civil rights movement they even engaged in direct action, printing and distributing flyers that outed Murphy as an abuser. Ultimately their efforts fell on deaf ears. Towards the end of the film they sign 'deaf power'; the battle rages on.

Some of the expert interviewees provide fascinating historical context to the issues of Church governance and of the failure to expose offending priests to the criminal justice system. The film revisits the founding in the 1940s of the Servants of the Paraclete, an order that advocated spiritual rehabilitation for offending priests. To its credit the order envisioned that such priests were to be permanently removed from circulation; that didn't always occur.

The human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson makes an interesting albeit extreme case for the Vatican to be stripped of its statehood — something it achieved in the 20th century thanks to a deal struck with Mussolini while Italy was under totalitarian rule — in order to expose corrupt leaders to external legal processes.

Another expert muses on one of the fundamentals in the formation of Catholics, suggesting that first communion occurs at too young an age. This, he argues, indoctrinates very young children into the sense of the priest as a figure of awe, which in turn might contribute to their pliability if a priest turns abuser. There is evidence in the film to suggest the deaf boys were enamoured of Murphy in a way that made them vulnerable to his advances.

This is all interesting and relevant stuff that speaks to Gibney's capabilities as an investigative filmmaker.

The film arrives in Australia a year after its American release. There is a sense that it has missed the boat, given that our own state inquiries and Royal Commission into the abuse of children in institutions have gathered steam in the interim. Given, too, that the election of Pope Francis, whose sense of solidarity with the poor and vulnerable, and agenda for the reform of Church governance, have raised the hopes of many Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

In the local context, the film at least serves as a warning of what revelations may be to come. In the context of the international Church, it is a sobering reminder of how much work remains to be done.