Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God

2012
8| 1h46m| en| More Info
Released: 16 November 2012 Released
Producted By: Jigsaw Productions
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Academy Award®–winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) explores the charged issue of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, following a trail from the first known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States and all way to the Vatican.

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Reviews

Supelice Dreadfully Boring
ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.
konojay This is an excellent documentary on how the Catholic Church has let down its people. Child Sexual abuse has long been a problem in the Church. That's not to say that other religions have had their problems too. It focuses on how sexual abuse, especially in deaf community and it was so rampant. The film gives great insight on how the Catholic Church succeeded in creating a massive cover up. It evens show how Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger played a vital role in covering up the abuse happening worldwide. The film may make you bitter, even angry, but for those of us who are Catholic it's an amazing outpouring of sadness. I found myself doing more research on this subject. The victims in the film pour out their heart and souls, and even though they were deaf and they signed their lines, you are offered the opportunity to hear what they are saying with excellent guest star voices. Even the use of photography where the zoomed in on the hands signing was awesome, I felt their grief through their sign language. The cinematography is excellent and the use of old film footage makes you feel like you are there. In my opinion a must see film, especially if you are Catholic. It sends a clear message that the Church has a long road ahead in rebuilding its trust with its congregation.
mail-608-383925 The movie is done very well for a documentary. If it were me doing it, I would have been much more hateful and promote a sense of outrage towards those who could/can do something about it yet choose to remain silent. However, the producers were wise, and presented facts (spoken by the victims themselves), letting you make up your own mind about what they said. I found this to be very effective.The monumental size of the damage done by the silent church cannot be put in words. To know about tens of thousands of abuses on children, be able to take action, and yet choose to remain silent, it is beyond my comprehension not only as a human being, but as a devout Christian.I hope that people will not be mad at the one person that the movie focused on (Lawrence Murphy). Our instinct is to try and take our anger on him, and make him pay for what he did. But we cannot do that - he is dead, and even if he were alive, there is nothing we can do to completely take out our rage against the incomprehensible acts that he did. However, what we can do is watch the movie, vote on it, ask others to watch it, and find ways to support those who are far better equipped than us to take action.
cruzincat I just saw this documentary today after hearing about it from my wife, who did not see the whole film. We watched it together. I have never been Catholic, while she had been for a short period while attending an all girls Catholic High School.What struck me most about the film was the reason that was given for Father Murphy's exit from St John's, for health reasons. Just this morning, Pope Benedict announced he was stepping down for health reasons. It makes me wonder if the release of this documentary had something to do with his decision. If he lives even half as long as Father Murphy did, after he left St John's, it would, in my opinion, give lie to that.This film needs to be seen by everyone in the world and let them make up their own minds. I do give a lot of credit to the Dubliners that have stopped attending Mass. The documentary stated that they were down to 4% of the Catholics still attending. Good for them!
Frances Farmer This film does a fine job of documenting the groundbreaking, courageous and tenacious efforts of a group of deaf men to expose a pedophile priest who ran a school for deaf children and preyed on those children for many years.The nature of the crimes and the pervasive lack of action by the catholic church to discipline the criminal priest and aid his victims is truly disgusting. Similar circumstances in Ireland are also reviewed where priests were well known to have abused children in their churches and yet they were never appropriately disciplined either by the church or turned over by the church to the civil authorities. It is extremely important that these heinous crimes and the institutional resistance in the church to deal with them are made known by films such as this one. The story of how these men who courageously pursued their search for justice prevailed despite tremendous church inaction and resistance is inspiring.My only quibble with the film is when it uses contemporary dramatizations to give viewers a feeling for what it would have been like to have been a child in these environments. These are not so much dramatic re-enactments as brief glimpses very much at the periphery of the actual abuse. Still, I thought they were unnecessary as the testimony and documentary footage provided ample information and were more than enough to make my blood boil.Do see this film and support it for the important work it does in exposing a very serious abuse of trust by an institution of tremendous power that still doggedly refuses to hold itself accountable for so many horrendous crimes.