Exposing the sins of the father

Turning a blind eye: Mea Maxima Culpa looks at pedophilia in the Catholic Church. Source: Supplied

MOVIE REVIEW: This provocatively maddening, saddening documentary examines a seeming epidemic of pedophilic behaviour among priests of the Catholic Church.

Though extensively covered in the media in recent years, the complexities of this tragic topic many of which the Vatican still refuses to acknowledge have proven difficult to understand.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney has achieved a clear, accessible perspective on the situation with Mea Maxima Culpa.

Not only through meticulous research. But also by revisiting a long-forgotten case that may have played a crucial part in shifting the Catholic Church's once-immovable stance.

The story begins and ends with four students who passed through the Catholic-run St John's School for the Deaf in Milwaukee in the 1960s.

The administrative head of St John's was a priest by the name of Father Lawrence Murphy. He used that position to take advantage of several students throughout his lengthy tenure.

Murphy's shockingly predatory nature was known to many during that era. The local authorities were notified countless times of molestation incidents at St John's.

Higher up the chain of command inside the Catholic Church, bishops, archbishops and even cardinals were repeatedly petitioned across four successive decades about the sex crimes of Father Lawrence Murphy. So too were the powers-that-be at the Vatican.

Father Murphy never once faced a single charge from inside or outside the church. He died a free man. His victims remain imprisoned by the thoughts of what he did to them.

The four former St John's students who participate in the documentary (through sign language and voiceovers from actors such as Ethan Hawke and Chris Cooper) never let the abusive legacy of Father Murphy get to them.

Sadly, very little humanity is to be found in the higher reaches of the Catholic Church.

The Vatican laid out a doctrine on how to deal with molesting priests in the 19th century. Yes, this was identified as a major problem that far back.

That doctrine? Admit nothing. Pay the victims if there's no other way of resolution. But protect the offending priest at all costs.

In the first half of the last decade, the chief arbiter of this complicity and compassion-free policy was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

As the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, it is believed Ratzinger oversaw every sexual abuse claim sustained by his Church.

Ratzinger did his job, and did nothing. He became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.

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Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God [M]

Rating: 4.5/5

Director: Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room)

Starring: the voices of Ethan Hawke, Chris Cooper, John Slattery, Alex Gibney (narrator)

"A suffering no longer silenced"

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