Film Details Priest's Life of Abuse, by Mark Sauer, Union-Tribune, October 14, 2006

Film Details Priest's Life of Abuse

By Mark Sauer
Union-Tribune
October 14, 2006

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20061014-9999-7m14deliver.html

Five years of shocking revelations and nearly $1.5 billion paid out in lawsuits nationwide may have brought on scandal fatigue in the saga of pedophile Roman Catholic priests.

But a documentary film that severely criticizes church officials could rekindle public anger as long-awaited clergy-abuse lawsuits in San Diego and Los Angeles head toward trial this winter.

In "Deliver Us From Evil," former priest Oliver O'Grady turns confessor, describing in disturbing detail how he sexually abused boys and girls at parishes in Central California from the 1970s to the 1990s.

"Deliver Us From Evil" tells the story of Oliver O'Grady, a former priest who was convicted of sexually abusing children. He served a prison term and was deported to Ireland.
Photo by The Lionsgate

The film is especially harsh on Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who was bishop in Stockton and O'Grady's superior when he learned of the Irish priest's weakness for children.

The movie's themes will soon be examined in courtrooms here and in Los Angeles.

Lawyers suing Mahony, San Diego Bishop Robert Brom and their respective dioceses on behalf of more than 600 alleged victims of pedophile priests have spent three years in an unsuccessful, and largely anonymous, mediation process.

With the first civil trials – five each in Los Angeles and San Diego – scheduled to finally begin by January, "Deliver Us From Evil" is being viewed by plaintiffs' lawyers as potential manna from heaven.

"I believe that anyone who sees this movie will be impacted by the story that unfolded in Stockton," said Irwin Zalkin, a Solana Beach attorney representing dozens of plaintiffs in San Diego and Los Angeles.

"They will naturally wonder about what happened in dioceses like San Diego. And the cases coming to trial will be our opportunity to let people know."

Oct. 27 opening

"Deliver Us From Evil" will play in San Diego only at the Landmark Theater in La Jolla Village Square. The movie opens Oct. 27.

The movie opened yesterday in Los Angeles and New York, and opens Oct. 27 in San Diego and many other cities.

O'Grady, revealed in the film as an ingratiating sexual predator, served seven years in a California prison after a conviction for "lewd and lascivious acts" perpetrated on two preteen Stockton brothers. He was later deported to his native Ireland, where he lives as a free man on a church pension.

Produced by veteran TV news investigator Amy Berg, the film brings the vast priest-abuse scandal to life by focusing on the damage O'Grady caused to the lives of a handful of his many victims.

Mahony denies role

Mahony, through a spokesman, vigorously denied the film's unmistakable conclusion: that he hid O'Grady's crimes from parishioners, and failed to address psychologically damaged victims to protect the church and his own career.

"People seem to have baptized this film as being free of error and omission," said Tod Tamberg, Mahony's chief spokesman. "But there are substantial parts of the record that Berg looked at and chose to ignore because it did not fit her script."

Berg, who spent four years covering the pedophile-priest story for CBS News and CNN, angrily retorted that she has documents to back up every charge made against the cardinal.

"Roger Mahony will lie in order to get out of any situation," Berg said in an interview yesterday. "His testimony has been disputed time and again and both the criminal and civil juries who heard (the O'Grady cases) in Stockton said they did not believe him.

"I stand by every word in this movie."

Cardinal Mahony, Bishop Brom and their large contingent of attorneys are hoping its status as a documentary film with limited release will mean a short shelf life.

"We'll have some buzz from this movie to deal with," Tamberg said. "But I believe it will come and go quickly. Who, besides the big believers invested in this scandal, will want to watch what is a very distasteful subject matter?"

Berg's answer: "Anyone interested in protecting children and the cause of justice."

Decades of abuse

In the film, O'Grady admits abusing countless Catholic-school children over decades, saying his superiors knew of his crimes and should have stopped him long before he was arrested and convicted in 1993.

Typical of priests found to be abusers, O'Grady was shuffled among several Northern California parishes, with families and children in his new postings unaware of his abusive past and tendencies.

"The film is an absolutely chilling and accurate depiction of exactly what went on in Stockton and what also went on in Southern California," said Larry Drivon.

An attorney based in Stockton, Drivon won a $30 million judgment (later reduced to $13.5 million) from the Stockton diocese in a lawsuit based on O'Grady's crimes. "The cover-ups, denial and delay (by church officials) is still going on in the cases in San Diego and Los Angeles," he said.

A similar case

Zalkin, the local attorney representing dozens of Southern California plaintiffs, said a case eerily similar to that of O'Grady is among the five set for trial here in January.

The case involves former priest Edward Anthony Rodrigue, 69, who received a 10-year prison sentence in 1998 for molesting an 11-year-old developmentally disabled boy in San Bernardino County. (Rodrigue was recently paroled and lives in a San Bernardino apartment.)

The unnamed victim in the upcoming civil trial alleges that when Rodrigue was a priest at El Centro's Our Lady of Guadalupe parish, he sexually abused him regularly in 1976.

Rodrigo Valdivia, spokesman for Bishop Brom and the San Diego diocese, said "we really would not have any comment" on Berg's documentary.

Nor would he comment on accusations from plaintiffs' attorneys that diocese lawyers are attempting to impede the legal process and delay the January start of the San Diego trials.

"I don't know that either one of us will see that movie," said Valdivia, referring to himself and Brom. "And I have no idea what impact it might have" on the public or the lawsuits.

Mark Sauer: (619) 293-2227; mark.sauer@uniontrib.com