Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God

After looking at the world of NHL pugilists in last year's outstanding The Last Gladiators, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God finds director Alex Gibney returning to investigating abuses of power, a theme that has served him well in past efforts like Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room and the Oscar-winning Taxi To The Dark Side. This disturbing exposé on the problem of child and youth sexual abuse in the Catholic Church focuses partly on the stories of five deaf men who are thought to be the first individuals to ever publicly protest abuses by clergy in the United States, after they were victimized by Father Lawrence Murphy at St. John's School for the Deaf in the suburbs of Milwaukee during the 60s and 70s. Gibney also takes a broader view of the subject by looking at other cases of clergy abuse (notably in Ireland) and the systematic cover-ups of these crimes by the Catholic Church's top officials, whose unofficial policy on the matter is to "deny, minimize, and blame", according to one journalist interviewed. "Mea Maxima Culpa's" Latin translation is "my most grievous fault".

Although the five St. John's victims have been working for over three decades to call attention to the issue and seek justice for their suffering, their story gained traction after New York Times writer Laurie Goodstein wrote an article in 2010 about the Vatican's failure to defrock Murphy, despite the fact that they were presented with undeniable evidence of his crimes and received strong warnings from some American church officials. Murphy is believed to have molested over 200 boys at the boarding school from the 50s until 1974, when he was transferred to another parish. The Vatican was alerted of Murphy's behaviour in 1963 and did nothing. Actors Jamey Sheridan, Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke, and John Slattery give voice to the victims, who use sign language with punctuated hand slaps to express the horrors they endured at the hand of Murphy and the shame that followed. Murphy's textbook predatory behaviour found him singling out what he perceived as the weaker students and further exploiting the fact that they faced an obvious barrier in communicating over the phone with their families. Three of the victims, including Terry Kohut, who sued the Catholic Church and named the current Pope in his lawsuit, were on hand for the world premiere TIFF screening I attended and gave their emotional reaction to it afterwards at the Q & A through a sign language interpreter. Just knowing that they were in the audience and reliving their pain while seeing the finished film for the first time added an extra significance and weight to the proceedings.

The investigations resulting from the Kohut lawsuit ended up leading to the discovery of secret Vatican documents that detailed many instances of sexual abuse cover-ups that reach to the highest levels of the Catholic Church, with Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) substantially implicated. In the years before being anointed Pope, Ratzinger oversaw a Vatican council that monitored sexual abuse cases in the Church, so his post-anointment claims of being unaware of most of what was occurring seem highly unlikely. How his and his predecessor's culpability and mishandling of these tragic cases hasn't been a much larger media story is difficult to understand.

That aside, overall media coverage of child and youth sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has, sadly, become an all-too-familiar story that one almost becomes numb to. Gibney rises to the challenge of presenting a fresh take on a much-discussed important subject with this well-researched and powerful film. My only real negative about it are the re-enactments that Gibney employs, even if they are artfully composed and beautifully shot, using plenty of religious imagery. Re-enactments are a staple of Gibney's work (not to mention Errol Morris'), but the stories he tells are usually compelling enough and, in my opinion, the end results are slightly diminished with this gimmicky device that feels like an imagination crutch for the audience.

Never a film-maker to shy away from trying to make sense of a somewhat catastrophic event or subject matter, Academy Award winning documentary film-maker Alex Gibney tackles the subject of paedophilia in the Catholic church. From the bottom, where apparently celibate priests have free reign over their own church relatively unsupervised to take confessions inside a broom cupboard and prey on children while they sleep, to the very top, where cardinals cover-up or ignore the problem, and the Pope fails to acknowledge the many flaws in their beloved system. It's a film of two halves, each powerful and expertly crafted in their own right, but failing to come together into a cohesive narrative.

The first half is the most powerful and heart-breaking. Throughout the 1960's, priest Lawrence Murphy sexually molested in the region of 200 young boys. At the St. John School for the Deaf in Milwaukee, four men tell their own unique and frightening stories of the abuse they suffered and the lack of help available. Similar to many families in this period, their families could not sign and therefore could not understand their cries for help. Signing to the camera and narrated by actors Jamey Sheridan, Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke and John Slattery, the four men's disabilities become a metaphor for the years of silence endured by other victims of no handicap, who over the course of time have heard their cries fall on closed ears, especially when it came to calling out for justice or at least an explanation from the Vatican itself.

When the film shifts into its second phase, it becomes more conspirational and less human, throwing us facts and archive imagery as Gibney looks under every rock he can find. What he uncovers is hardly surprising - a huge Vatican cover-up and the relocation of many priests finding themselves under scrutiny from the locals were covered in somewhat less detail in Amy Berg's unsettling Deliver Us From Evil (2006) - but he is searching for some kind of explanation. Hearing of abuse cases dating back hundreds of years among the priesthood, it seems the Vatican see the problem more as an inevitability. It often feels like Gibney is clutching at straws, trying to find a link to every corner of the corridors of power, and the absence of any spokesperson from the Vatican is an admittedly unsurprising disappointment. But it avoids the pitch-fork waving approach, and tells us of a very real problem for which we have few answers for.

If Dan Brown had written a novel about a cover-up in the Catholic Church on the scale depicted in this film, it would be treated as a great work of fiction. The trouble is, it's all true and that's the most shocking thing about it. It is a very well made film that has a compelling flow to the narrative and this is helped with some nicely chosen musical backdrops. The only thing that lets it down is a lack of balance, but then, as it says in the film, the Vatican refused to be interviewed for this film. Not that they could have put up any defence. I found it a gripping watch that did get a little emotional at times. Well worth a look whatever religion (or not) you are.

SteelMonster's verdict: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

My score: 8.8/10

You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

I've gradually come to see the Catholic Church for what it truly is -- an archaic, oppressive, lying institution that's hopelessly out of touch with 21st Century realities, which destroys millions of lives around the world and has done unspeakable evil throughout human history.

The excesses stem not just a few bad apples. The root cause is institutional corruption. In Catholicism, according to Canon Law, everything flows downward from the very top. This means the Vatican ultimately bears responsibility for crimes against humanity.

Strong words? Hardly. If anything, those words aren't strong enough.

The Roman Catholic Church remains wielded to the Dark Ages. And its not just because a bunch of men chose to walk around in black robes speaking a dead language that went out of existence 500 years ago while waving containers full of ash dust, or nuns suppressing their own individuality in observance of unconditional servitude.

Look at the facts: Catholic policies towards women are degrading. Catholic commandments on birth control creates imminent poverty for millions who starve and die in developing countries. Catholic beliefs toward basic human rights are often are cowardly and self-serving. Catholic teachings on sex are Neanderthal. Catholic practices on economic and social issues are reprehensible. And Catholic teachings on so-called "morality" are duplicitous.

All this aside, the Catholic Church's policies and practices in the tens of thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of sexual abuse scandals around the world involving priests is downright disgusting. Many heads need to roll -- starting with just about every Pope dating all the way back to the 4th Century. Indeed, the Vatican has been a collaborator in innumerable crimes and cover ups since the fall of the Byzantines.

The Catholic Church is an empire of corruption. This has nothing to do with matters of faith or a belief in God. It has everything to do with making the appropriate choices as to which institutions in our society deserve our reverence and trust.

The Catholic Church and the Vatican deserve neither.

That said, no one wants to read or hear about priests and sex scandals.

It's a hideous subject. It's certainly not entertainment. There's no satisfaction to be gained from subjecting oneself to the indescribable evils committed by members of the clergy. Contemplating these horrible acts against innocent children which have gone on for so long in so many places is painful to look at.

But look we must. And re-think everything we believe about Catholicism, we should.

HBO has just debuted a new documentary on this subject. The title is Mea Maxima Cula: Silence in the House of God. I had heard about this powerful film by award-winning director Ale Gibney, which runs about 90 minutes. Late last night, when I saw this program was coming up as the next feature show on HBO, I considered tuning in.

Then again, why would I have any desire to watch such a thing? I thought to myself -- why would I want to subject myself to something like this? Who in the world would willingly stop and watch people doing such repulsive things to children? So, I did what most probably do. I turned the channel.

But curiosity got the best of me. I found myself flipping back to Mea Maxima Culpa and watching bits and pieces of the documentary. As I watched, I began to realize this wasn't only a film about controversial subject. It was a story about politics and power. It was also a story about extraordinary courage -- those who initially stepped forward and told of what happened. I came to realize this was a masterful documentary that becomes increasingly more intense as the viewer gets absorbed into the story.

Essentially, Mea Maxima Cula focuses on several deaf adults who are now in their 60s and 70s. Back during he 1950's as children, they were sexually abused by priests in Milwaukee. Unfortunately, as we would gradually learn there were many more Milwaukees -- hundreds, if not thousands of Milwaukees around the world.

While the Vatican continues to lie, engages in cover ups, and postures itself as being above all the crimes committed at the parish level, this film indisputably links Rome with just about all the filth done by its faithful servants. Church hierarchy was far more than just an enabler. They have been confederates in these conspiracies for the past 1,700 years (watch the documentary -- the evidence is clear).

The Inquisition. The war on enlightenment. The Crusades. Pacts with fascism. Sex crimes and cover ups. Why isn't the Catholic Church being tried for crimes against humanity? I urge you to not miss this program.

A Final Thought: The word "hero" gets overused.

Worse, its often misapplied to athletes and celebrities in our culture who frankly do nothing to deserve such adulation.

Thank goodness there are real heroes in this world. Some of them appear in this film, as the brave men who were courageous enough to step forward and tell what happened.

Imagine the humiliation of revealing one of the worst things imaginable -- committing sex acts on children. Imagine what it took for these brave people who risked finger-pointing, hushed whispers, and public ridicule for the sake of justice? Why is this important? Why should you care? Maybe you won't.

But if hundreds of years of history, institutionalized corruption from top to the bottom, and a continuing conspiracy of denial from the Vatican doesn't sway you towards contempt for the Catholic Church, then nothing will.

Thank goodness there were men brave enough to step out of the shadows and one very dedicated filmmaker willing to shine a lens and a light into the darkest corners of the church's soul.

www.nolandalla.com

I only heard about this film recently, although at the time of his resignation I had heard that the Pope had gone in relation to revelations within a film. This was just a suggestion of course and it may not even have been this film but what made me come to this was mainly that I heard it mentioned in a list of documentaries from Gibney. His documentaries have been well worth watching and on that basis I wanted to watch this one. The film looks at the child abuse scandal within the catholic church, focusing specifically on a handful of cases involving deaf children and slowly working its way up to the highest positions within the organization of the church.

As a journey it is one that is hard to watch from start to end. The details of the abuse are very difficult to listen to – not just the words but the realization of how completely alone these boys were, how utterly predatory their abuser was; we all know it occurred but to hear it from these victims made it all the realer to me and all the more sickening. As the film goes on we continue to get details, not so much over the abuse but over the action (or rather, inaction) of the church. It moves key players into the frame, discussing the structure of treatment centers, protection of priests and really doesn't leave much doubt about how much was known and by contrast how little was done. It is very hard to watch and it is mostly structured very well to not only build the story so effectively but also to shock and upset even after so much of this issue is known.

It doesn't totally manage to close the loop and once it reaches the top and loops round to the original story again, it doesn't quite have the structural impact as a whole that it did in specific moments. This is a very minor failing in comparison to how effective it is for the majority of the running time, but it does leave the film feeling that the final knockout punch is missing – which of course it is. The footage is well edited together and Gibney's narrator is mostly restrained and well pitched. It is a very hard watch at times though, but the subject matter is well worth the feeling of anger, injustice and sense of total exploitation that it will leave you with.