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DELIVER US FROM EVIL (2006)
ROADSHOW DVD (region 4)
d. Amy Berg; pr. Amy Berg, Frank Donner, Matthew Cooke, Hermas Lassalle; scr. Amy Berg; ph. Jacob Kusk, Jens Schlesser; m. Joseph Arthur, Mick Harvey; ed. Matthew Cooke; cast. Oliver O'Grady, Bob & Maria Jyono, Anne Jyono (90 mins)
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Catholicism as a Haven for the World's Worst Paedophiles and Child Molesters
Father Oliver O’Grady has been described as “the most notorious paedophile in the history of the modern Catholic Church.”
For decades, with the full knowledge of the Catholic hierarchy, O’Grady sexually molested child after child only to be forgiven, protected and shuffled around from parish to parish by his superiors, Bishops and Cardinals. This during the time when Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Pope) had domain over the investigation of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in Rome and America where, according to figures quoted in the Oscar-nominated documentary Deliver Us from Evil, no less than 10% of emerging priests from the San Francisco diocese that loosed O’Grady were paedophiles. The implications of this figure makes a mockery of the Catholic religion as a whole and indicates that at its heart, Catholicism is a monstrous and vile paedophile ring of child rapists and those who sanction, forgive and protect them in the name of God rather than council victims or make restitution.
The unacceptable failure of the Catholic Church to curb paedophilia in its ranks is the subject of Deliver Us from Evil, which profiles child rapist O’Grady as a representative “good Catholic” and offers his victims and their families the chance to speak out of their suffering and betrayal by arguably the most repugnantly insidious of Christian religions – Catholicism.
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Humanist Outage at the Malignant Malevolence of Catholicism
Full of outrage but at its core humanist and tender, Deliver Us from Evil is essential viewing, exposing the Catholic Church’s inherently hypocritical immorality for the scrutiny of all.
The Catholic Church must be held accountable for the actions of paedophile priests according to Deliver Us from Evil and its reluctance to do so, contextualized in this film in terms of their beliefs in celibacy and forgiveness, is a human rights outrage that makes a mockery of their faith and their Church. O’Grady’s pathetic self-absorption is contrasted to the once devastated but pieced together lives of Bob and Maria Jyono, parents of a girl who O’Grady molested and raped when she was as young as 5 after being invited in to share accommodation in their house. Once devout Catholics, they have turned atheistic as a result of their experiences and their complete abandonment by the Catholic Church in favour of protecting the paedophile who destroyed their lives and decimated their daughter’s childhood. O’Grady on his part retreats into ego-driven justifications and excuses, relating that he confessed his crimes in the proper Catholic manner to his Bishop (Guilfoyle) who at first tried to excuse it and when confronted with a signed letter of confession from O’Grady first fumed, then hushed and covered it up, transferring O’Grady to another parish some miles away to avoid controversy – a move which O’Grady took as sanction to molest again. O’Grady says with a hint of disbelief that upon confession of his crimes, he was merely forgiven and allowed to continue.
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Systemic Catholic Complicity in the Cover-Up of Child Rape
The terrible atrocity that is Catholicism is laid bare in Deliver Us from Evil, a potent and devastating account of Church complicity in covering up child rape rather than admit any kind of culpability or remove a known, admitted paedophile from access to children he could take advantage of through his position as Priest.
Yet, while the film is well aware of the continual threat posed by O’Grady, since relocated to Ireland, it reveals that had there been early intervention by the Church, he could have been prevented from continuing and perhaps received the treatment (or punishment) he needed. But: the bishops, knowing every detail, effectively promoted him to full pastor instead of assistant, all because of the need to present a good public image above all and avoid the taint of scandal. That ultimately makes the Catholic Church guilty of systematic child sexual abuse to the point of prosecutable criminal culpability.
But Deliver Us from Evil does not limit itself to the issue of Catholic culpability and emerges as a profile of victim testimony, exploring how those affected by O’Grady deal with the trauma he inflicted upon them, victims and families – as O’Grady admitted he spent as much time grooming victims as being a Priest in his 30 years of association with the Church, the true number of his victims reportedly being in the hundreds. As such, this is the screen’s finest study of paedophilia and the toll it takes on victims, giving O’Grady opportunity to explain himself, which it juxtaposes with victim testimony and exposure of the Church cover-up.
Child rape is a horrific crime and its association to the Priesthood taints the Catholic Church beyond repair, the film emerging as a portrayal of a child abuser, an insight into the terrible human cost of child sexual abuse and a totally justifiable condemnation of the Catholic Church as a modern obscenity and betrayer of humanity.
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...THIS FILM IS NOT AS YET AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY...
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