MASSACHUSETTS
The Heights
By Sean Keeley
Arts & Review Editor
Published: Sunday, October 6, 2013
“The past is never the past because it’s your past, your present, and your future,” said Alexa MacPherson about halfway through the documentary Who Takes Away the Sins…: Witnesses to Clergy Abuse.
“It becomes you, it defines who you are.”
Those words echoed through the Museum of Fine Art’s Remis Auditiorium this weekend, as Who Takes Away the Sins screened there on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The film, co-produced by husband and wife team and Boston College professors John and Susan Michalczyk, is an attempt to bear witness to a very ugly and disturbing past indeed: the history of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal, which drew headlines across the world in 2002. Focusing locally around the Archdiocese of Boston, where the scandal first broke, Who Takes Away The Sins includes a broad assortment of testimonies from survivors, advocates, an investigative reporter, a concerned clergy member, and the attorney who represented many of the Church’s victims. The result is an impassioned and moving film that integrates a diversity of viewpoints into its inescapable conclusion: that the Church knowingly covered for abusive priests and hushed up their crimes to protect its reputation.
As the Church has refused to reckon with its past, the victims have struggled to move on from their childhood traumas. While the details of each victim’s testimony are unique, the general story is familiar. Survivors tell of growing up in an environment that revered the Catholic Church and made questioning its authority unthinkable. Many of their abusers ingratiated themselves into their family lives thanks to their status as priests. MacPherson explains that most of her abuse happened in her family home, with her parents 10 feet away in some other room. David Carney recalls being betrayed by a priest who mentored him at school and drove him home. Gerald Sypek was repeatedly abused while growing up in a Catholic orphanage. He explains that his abuse has inhibited him from trusting people or forming close relationships.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.