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	Abuse Is Real-Life Horror Flick Documentary Reveals Priest's Pedophilia, Church's Cover-Up, Victims' Loss of Faith By Rubén Rosario St. Paul Pioneer Press October 20, 2006 http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/state/minnesota/15802364.htm We've seen this before, from Minnesota to Boston: pedophile priests running amok, a church hierarchy more interested in covering up abuse than protecting children, and emotionally jarring tales from victims. "Deliver Us From Evil" has all this in visually haunting buckets. But the documentary, which opens locally Nov. 10, goes one better by having a pedophile priest confess his sins on camera. The film arrives as clergy abuse once again surfaces on the national radar with the recent disclosure from disgraced Florida congressman Mark Foley that he was abused by a priest as a teenager. Foley waited nearly a month after the revelation before identifying the priest to prosecutors and archdiocese officials in Miami this week. "Survivors don't disclose unless they are in trouble, until they are in crisis, or they discover it happens to others, or there is some psychological breakdown," says Jeffrey Anderson, a St. Paul-based lawyer who appears in the film and has represented more than 1,000 alleged victims of clergy abuse in the past 25 years. "But what is so disturbing about it is that once (Foley) made that disclosure, he has the moral obligation to identify who did it," Anderson said of Foley's decision not to reveal the name immediately. "Because in the absence of that, that guy, whoever he is, can still be out there, could still be alive, and if he is, he's still doing it." And Oliver O'Grady, 61, the lead character in the film, is living proof of that very real concern. It is estimated that O'Grady sexually abused 100 or more boys and girls while serving as a parish priest at a California archdiocese from 1976 until about 1993. He served seven years of a 14-year prison term. No longer a priest, he resides in Ireland. O'Grady spends much of the film baring graphic details of his crimes while seated either inside a church or in front of a children's playground. He claims he was abused by a priest and an older brother in his youth and in turn began abusing a sister. He admits to being sexually aroused by the sight of small children. Other film highlights include jaw-dropping excerpts of videotaped depositions taken from church officials, particularly Cardinal Roger Mahony, now based in Los Angeles but then a bishop in Stockton, Calif. Instead of being sent to a place where he could be treated and kept away from kids, O'Grady was bounced around from one parish to another to prey on a series of unsuspecting communities of children and families. Mahony, who is named in several other pending lawsuits, was asked at one point in a deposition if he would remove from ministry work a priest whom he knew had "sexual urges" toward small children. "No," he responded. The victims in the film, and their parents, will break your heart. They include Ann Jyono, whom O'Grady repeatedly abused after her parents, devout Catholics, had the priest stay overnight at their home. "He was the closest thing to God that we knew," says the woman's mother, Maria. Her father, Bob, says he lost his faith after her daughter revealed her victimization. "There is no God," he says in an emotionally jarring scene. His daughter, however, still wants to believe. "We came to regain our faith," she says after an unsuccessful trip to Rome to deliver a letter urging the Vatican to do more about clergy misconduct. Amy Berg, the filmmaker, has made the best horror flick I've seen this year. "People need to know that children are suffering as a result of other people not making decisions for them that were open or honest," says Berg, in town Thursday for a select showing of the film. Berg added that church officials, who refused to be interviewed for the film, have denounced it as inherently biased. The film is not anti-church, but anti-abuse. In fact, after seeing it, I came away with increased admiration for the priests I know who tirelessly work to save souls and do social justice. A good priest is a "revolutionary," like the Rev. Thomas Doyle described Jesus Christ in the film. The good ones don't have blinders on and they don't toe the line when the truth tells them otherwise. They tell it like it is, like my former church pastor did during a sermon several years ago during the height of the Boston church sex abuse scandal. "If you believe that your child is being sexually abused by a priest, don't call the church," he said. "Call 911." Rubén Rosario can be reached at rrosario@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5454. If you go The documentary "Deliver Us from Evil" opens Nov. 10 at the Landmark Theatre in Edina.
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