Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God - review

The venal sins of the Vatican are exposed in this documentary tackling child abuse
p40 Budzinski edition main 15/02
27 February 2013

A documentary about child abuse and the Vatican was always going to be a tough sell, but thanks to Joseph Ratzinger’s resignation on Monday, Mea Maxima Culpa (“I’m completely to blame”) suddenly feels like required viewing.

Disturbing, often surreal and frequently moving, the film begins with four men talking, or rather signing (actors Ethan Hawke, Chris Cooper, John Slattery and Jamey Sheridan deliver their words). In the Sixties, they attended a boarding school in Wisconsin for the deaf, which is where they were abused by cherub-faced Father Murphy.

Terry, Gary, Arthur and Pat did everything they could, as boys, to blow the whistle on Murphy. They fought on as adults, through ground-breaking legal channels, increasingly interested in the bigger picture, i.e. the worldwide “system” that allowed priests like Murphy to thrive.

The Catholic Church, it seems, will do anything to protect its own. The Vatican helped cover up abuse in America and Ireland but also closer to home. We learn about Father Marcial Maciel, a “favourite” of John Paul II, whose crimes against children were kept quiet for years and only acknowledged by Rome when both Maciel and John Paul II were dead.

Ratzinger is crucial to the story, because when he became a cardinal he was put in charge of assessing all sexual abuse cases concerning the Catholic clergy. Various figures here claim he was frustrated by his limited powers and that, even as Pope Benedict XVI, he was caught in a “stalemate”. Not everyone is so sympathetic. Geoffrey Robertson QC says it could be argued that the man’s degree of negligence over the child abuse scandals “involves him in a crime against humanity”.

This is an intimate portrait of a vast institution. Via Terry, Gary, Arthur and Pat, Gibney’s film shows the delight — rapture, even — that comes with holding the powerful to account. It also suggests that the Catholic Church is a sinking ship. No wonder Ratzinger opted to jump.

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