The central visual in Alex Gibney's documentary "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House of God" is one both powerful and distressing -- that of its subjects delivering their impassioned testimonials to the camera in eloquent sign language. They fought to bring to light the sexual abuse inflicted on them by a priest as children attending Wisconsin's St. John School for the Deaf in what is the first known protest against clerical sex abuse in the U.S., the response to which and the larger, devastating problem of cover-ups Gibney traces all the way up to the highest reaches of the Catholic Church. Terry Kohut, Gary Smith, Arthur Budzinksi and Bob Bolger absolutely found ways to make themselves heard, but the added layer of vulnerability to their situation as boys makes the terrible breach of trust all the more apparent. These were kids with, often, no one to communicate...
- 2/4/2013
- by Alison Willmore
- Indiewire
The documentary Mea Maxima Culpa sheds light on the silence in the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church has taken some hard knocks over the years for the systemic cover-up of child sexual abuse by priests. Once you watch HBO’s documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God, you'll likely conclude the Church deserves every scandal, lawsuit and embarrassment it has endured.
In the film, director Alex Gibney dug deep to find out about a number of travesties that occurred in the Church, from the streets of Milwaukee all the way to the Vatican, where it seems silence was the golden rule, even in the face of the most horrific injustices.
One of the biggest crimes featured in the film is that of Father Lawrence Murphy, who abused over 200 deaf children in a Milwaukee school that he was in charge of. The victims, years later as adults, brought...
The Catholic Church has taken some hard knocks over the years for the systemic cover-up of child sexual abuse by priests. Once you watch HBO’s documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God, you'll likely conclude the Church deserves every scandal, lawsuit and embarrassment it has endured.
In the film, director Alex Gibney dug deep to find out about a number of travesties that occurred in the Church, from the streets of Milwaukee all the way to the Vatican, where it seems silence was the golden rule, even in the face of the most horrific injustices.
One of the biggest crimes featured in the film is that of Father Lawrence Murphy, who abused over 200 deaf children in a Milwaukee school that he was in charge of. The victims, years later as adults, brought...
- 2/1/2013
- by nyjimmy67
- The Backlot
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