UNITED STATES
The Times-Picayune
By Dave Walker, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on February 21, 2014
Tuesday’s (Feb. 25) episode of PBS’ “Frontline” unravels “Secrets of the Vatican” in a spellbinding 90-minute episode airing at 8 p.m. on WYES. New Orleans author Jason Berry (“Lead Us Not Into Temptation,” “Vows of Silence,” “Render Unto Rome”) is co-producer of the episode, which details some of the issues — clergy sex abuse, corruption at the Vatican Bank, the Vatileaks corruption exposes — that scandalized Benedict XVI’s papacy.
It also paints a grim picture of the challenges facing Benedict’s successor, Pope Francis.
Berry’s investigative reporting of the Catholic Church dates to 1992’s “Lead Us Not Into Temptation,” the first extensive account of sexual abuse of children by priests. His 2004 book “Vows of Silence,” written with co-author Gerald Renner, explored the sexual abuses of Mexican priest and Legion of Christ founder Marcial Maciel, and was also adapted into a documentary film of the same title. In 2011’s “Render Unto Rome,” Berry, a practicing Catholic, critically examined the church’s handling of its finances. Berry was also interviewed for Alex Gibney’s documentary “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God,” which detailed alleged sexual abuse by Lawrence Murphy, a priest at Milwaukee’s St. John’s School for the Deaf. “Mea Maxima Culpa” aired last year on HBO.
Here’s an edited email Q&A with Berry about Tuesday’s “Frontline: Secrets of the Vatican:”
Q: You’re credited as co-producer. What was your role? When did the work start? Was the final product what the project set out to be?
A: “Frontline” chose a renowned English director, Antony Thomas. One of the researchers contacted me about the time of the papal conclave last March. She’d seen an interview I did at St. Peter’s Square on the BBC, and had read my book “Render unto Rome.” She sent some questions, and we spoke by phone. Antony contacted me in early July and asked me to collaborate with him. He wanted my help on the sequence about Fr. Maciel and on episodes to film in the U.S. I sent a memo on that, outlining key American stories, how they connected to the Vatican episodes Antony’s team had researched.
I spent most of July and August going back and forth with him on research and scenario issues. We met in Boston in late August with the crew, filmed there, in Connecticut, New York and Milwaukee over several weeks. As Antony got into the editing several weeks later we had continuous emails and calls right up to the fine-cut edit last week. The film does closely track his treatment, though several strands had to be cut. This often happens in documentaries even with powerful material.
What’s new here? What’s new here for viewers familiar with your work and the coverage by others of these issues? What’s new here for people who haven’t followed the story?
Well, the film takes viewers into the Vatican’s baroque internal dynamics, and the infighting under Pope Benedict that exploded in the Vatican Bank and Vatileaks scandals. No TV network outside of Italy has covered those complex stories in much detail, and few newspapers in much depth. Viewers will get a clear story of the last pope betrayed by his own bureaucracy. Antony’s treatment of the gay priest culture in the Vatican — an explosive topic to be sure — is nuanced and even-handed, certainly not homophobic. The early episodes that deal with the Maciel case, and the Milwaukee archdiocesan bankruptcy, to stave off abuse victims’ claims, have gotten media attention as you note, but I think our handling of the people enmeshed in these numbing dramas will convey the scope of the crisis, all the way back to Rome. These issues are continuing, though daily media coverage tends to wax and wane.
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