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	'Evil' Delivers Vile Indictments By Ty Burr Boston Globe October 13, 2006 http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2006/10/13/evil_delivers_vile_indictments/ It isn't often you get to meet the devil in all his glory, but here he is in "Deliver Us From Evil," and his name is Father Oliver O'Grady. A California priest who raped dozens of children from the 1970s until his arrest in 1993 -- and who now lives in Ireland, a free man -- "Father Ollie" was consistently protected by the diocese hierarchy, which moved him from one mid-state parish to another whenever complaints arose. Amy Berg's scalding documentary wonders who's the greater sinner: the deeply sick man who couldn't control his impulses or the churchmen who knowingly allowed his reign of destruction to continue. Maybe you're burned out on tales of pedophile priests after the local events of recent years. Fair enough, but Berg convincingly argues that what happened in California -- where well over 400 Catholic priests have been accused of sexual abuse -- dwarfs what occurred in Boston. The film gives agonized voice to victims and their parents (and their attorneys), to theologians and child-abuse experts, and to the Rev. Thomas Doyle, who in 1985 warned the Vatican about the looming scandal and who has battled uphill on behalf of victims since. Most shockingly, "Deliver Us From Evil" lets us hear from O'Grady himself. Interviewed by Berg in Ireland, the ex-priest is remorseful, freakishly candid, and eerily disassociated from the immense swath of psychological damage he left in his wake. With a bashful half-grin, he speaks of touching boys and girls where he shouldn't have, and he almost has us convinced it could have been a momentary aberration until we hear from Ann Jyono and Nancy Sloan, women whose voices shake as they describe the regular, forceful sex acts visited upon them when they were as young as 5 . At one point, O'Grady sends a letter out to his victims, inviting them to Ireland so he can personally apologize. "It's going to be an interesting reunion," he muses, his delusion complete. Responds Adam, one of the abused, "I get so angry to think that guy's still alive. I would kill his mother." The meeting never takes place. The deeper rage, of the victims and the film, is reserved for a Catholic hierarchy headed by Cardinal Roger Mahoney, who knew O'Grady and protected him before Mahoney ascended to the position of archbishop of L A. Mahoney isn't interviewed in "Deliver" -- no one from the diocese would speak to Berg -- but his videotaped testimony from recent civil suits offers a damning portrait of an entrenched bureaucracy clinging to power by obfuscation and stonewalling. Just in case you're unclear about where his superiors stood on O'Grady: They offered (and he accepted) a lifetime annuity in exchange for not testifying about their treatment of him. "My parents don't get a pension from the church!" cries Jyono in bewilderment. "Deliver Us From Evil" strains, however, to make a larger case: that the sexual abuse of children by priests is so deeply ingrained that its roots go back to the fifth century, when celibacy was implemented by the church to get control of priestly assets. Interesting theory, but the evidence here is drive-by. Grander statements aren't needed when the specific indictments are so plentiful and so horrifying. There have been recent news reports that the Los Angeles District Attorney's office is considering charges against Mahoney, based on O'Grady's comments in this film. "Deliver Us From Evil" wonders if the church could possibly do a better job of destroying faith, in itself as an institution and in religion in general. "There is no God," mourns Jyono's father, once a devout Catholic. "All these rules are made by man." Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com.
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