Reviews, Interviews , News, Commentaries, My Top 5 Movies, Best-Of Lists, Filmmakers of Faith, Film ForumMea Maxima Culpa
In T. S. Elliot's "Murder in the Cathedral," the play's doomed Archbishop of Canterbury, Saint Thomas Becket, confesses, "[This] last temptation is the greatest of treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason."
The line came to mind throughout Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, which airs on HBO tonight (9/8c). Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney's scolding documentary on sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church professes to serve the truth, but obscures it for obvious ulterior motives.
The film profiles several well-publicized cases of pedophilia by clergy on both sides of the Atlantic. The principal focus, however, is the case of Father Lawrence Murphy, a Wisconsin priest accused of serial abuse of young boys, while serving at the Saint John School for the Deaf, from the 1950s to 1974.
Mea Maxima Culpa, which takes its title from the Latin phrase in the Confiteor penitential prayer meaning "My most grievous fault," starts off strong, as several of Murphy's victims—now grown men—use sign language to tell their agonizing stories, while actors including Chris Cooper and Ethan Hawke lend them voices.
Gibney's effective use of archival photographs and grainy home movies helps to recall the era and underscore Murphy's depravity by emphasizing the innocence and vulnerability of the victims.
These crimes and the response by civil and ecclesial authorities can hardly be covered dispassionately. But in Gibney's hands, advocacy for justice gives way to an activist agenda that relies on half-truths rather than facts to cast the Catholic Church in a sinister light.
Conspiracy Theories
To quote psychologist Donald R. Gannon, where facts are few, experts are many. And Gibney offers no shortage of those, carting out a Greek chorus of professional church critics to help build his case, including former Benedictine monk Richard Sipe, who makes the blanket statement that the system of Catholic clergy, "selects, cultivates, protects, defends and produces sexual abusers."
Noticeably missing is Father Thomas Brundage, the former judicial vicar for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee who presided over the Murphy case and who, according to an article in The Catholic World Report, was not contacted by the filmmaker. In a response to that article, Gibney dismisses Brundage as "forgetful, mendacious or irresponsibly inaccurate" for a misstatement the priest made about a 1998 draft memo involving Murphy—but that hardly excuses the omission. (CWR writer David Pierre later addressed Gibney's response.)
Gibney gives ample screen time to Jeff Anderson, the attorney for several of the victims, who has made a lucrative career suing the Church and whom the film paints as Martin Luther and Atticus Finch rolled into one. While Anderson is a relevant voice, it's worth noting, as William McGurn did in The Wall Street Journal in 2010, "It's hard to think of anyone with greater financial interest in promoting the public narrative of a church that takes zero action against abuser priests, with Pope Benedict XVI personally culpable."
Grieving with the Good Friday God
La complejidad hispana: Todo cambió en el 2012
(on articles open to the public, you must at least register for a free account).
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
Newsletters
Google
Comments
Displaying 1–3 of 10 comments
See all comments
Steven Mummy
David DiCerto reviews films for the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He has skin in this game. He is in essence reviewing a film critical of his employer. I graduated from a Roman Catholic seminary. The sexual malfeasance amongst clerics revealed to date is only the tip of the iceberg. From my own experience, and that of numerous classmates, ordained or nor, "promised chasity" is a myth. Richard Sipe's estimate of those observing it is low. The well documented actions taken by Bishops - Ratzinger included - to shield clerical abusers from criminal prosecution were deliberate, coordinated, criminal and immoral acts designed to protect the "patrimony" of the church: money and unconditional reverence from their flock - the foundation of their exhalted positions. DiCerto's beef is really that the film masterfully called the church to task about that fact, without giving the misplaced "reverence" that caused the crisis in the first place.
Ronald Grim
I was once a believer, but after close examination of Christianity, its origins and evolution, and specifically after the continued atrocities uncovered in films like this, I have to come to the conclusion that the world would be a far better place without the bane of religion. There is simply no excuse for the protection of institutions and clergy that indulge and protect those that would harm a child. The fact that they actively covered it up defies the specific charge with which these people were entrusted – and if one does not think that is the case here and around the planet, you are not living in reality. Having two young children of my own, I struggle daily as my wife wants to bring them up in the Catholic faith. I am to the point that unless the Church reveals every single individual involved in these horrific crimes, and notifies the parishioners where they reside, that I would not expose my children to such risk.
Doris Brosnan
You made about as good a Catholic try as possible to try to criticize this film. The Vatican had a chance to participate, but as a Catholic in the Milwaukee Archdiocese I can tell you they generally say as little as they can on this issue. The bottom line is the facts are the facts, and the facts really aren't aggrandized in this film. I understand the "devices" documentary movies use. The grainy film was pictures of the priest and the kids, what else are they going to use. It all comes down to the testimony of these deaf people who were abused. It is powerful, it is real. That is why the archdiocese of Milwaukee has done everything in its power to avoid a trial. The Wall Street Journal quote is an interesting argument. But the facts are the Catholic church did zero forever, even though it was in their best interest to do more.