AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street
Tim Kroenert March 20, 2013
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (M). Director: Alex Gibney. 102 minutes
The sexual abuse of children by religious is by its nature an emotional, as well as profoundly ethical, moral, spiritual and criminal issue. Films and documentaries about this subject will therefore necessarily appeal to the emotions of the viewer. This can be to their detriment, if the emotional appeal is emphasized over factual detail.
The 2007 film Deliver Us From Evil fell into this trap; an emotionally harrowing film that leaned heavily on the extensive and graphic testimony of one offending (and only self-interestedly repentant) priest, while failing at times to substantiate some of its more outlandish claims. This is the kind of sensationalism that feeds prejudices and arguably does more to exploit victims than to help them.
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House of God, by contrast, achieves a balance between its powerful emotional appeal and its integrity as a piece of investigative filmmaking.
It begins with a particular case study, that of Fr Lawrence Murphy, a key supporter and later head of a school for deaf boys in Milwaukee. Director Gibney interviews the now adult victims of Murphy, whose atrocities at the school during the late 1960s and 1970s included using the confessional as a kind of lair in which to abuse boys.
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