Deliver Us from Evil (2006 film)
Encyclopedia
Deliver Us from Evil is a documentary film
directed by Amy J. Berg
which tells the true story of Catholic
priest
Oliver O'Grady
, who admitted to having molested and rape
d approximately 25 children in Northern California
between the late 1970s and early 1990s. The film won the Best Documentary Award at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival
and was nominated for an Academy Award
for Best Documentary Feature
, losing to An Inconvenient Truth
. The title refers to a line in the Lord's Prayer
.
to his native Ireland
, where Berg interviewed him in 2005. Additionally, the film presents trial documents, videotaped deposition
s, and interviews with activists, theologians
, psychologists
and lawyers which suggest that not only were Church officials aware of O'Grady's crimes, they actively took steps to conceal them.
criticized Berg for filming children in Ireland
without their knowledge.
The film was very well-received by critics, earning a 100 percent "Fresh" rating from RottenTomatoes.com. As of January 2011, the film ranks eighth on Rotten Tomatoes' list of the best reviewed movies of all time.
After the documentary was shown on Dutch
national TV in April 2010, members of a parish in Schiedam
recognized O'Grady as an active volunteer in the parish until January 2010. His background was unknown to the parishioners. Apart from that he was active in the Netherlands
as an organizer of children's parties.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
directed by Amy J. Berg
Amy J. Berg
Amy J. Berg is an American film maker, known best for her Academy Award-nominated document film Deliver Us from Evil about the sex abuse cases in Roman Catholic Church and an abusive native Irish priest Oliver O'Grady...
which tells the true story of Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
Oliver O'Grady
Oliver O'Grady
Oliver O'Grady is an Irish former Roman Catholic priest who raped, molested and abused many children in California from 1973 onwards. He wrote a letter of confession to parents in 1976 and a copy was given to the Bishop of Stockton at that time....
, who admitted to having molested and rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
d approximately 25 children in Northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
between the late 1970s and early 1990s. The film won the Best Documentary Award at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival
Los Angeles Film Festival
The Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by the Los Angeles Times is an event held annually in June in downtown Los Angeles, California. The Los Angeles Film Festival began as the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival in 1995. The first LAIFF took place over the course of five days in a single...
and was nominated for an Academy Award
79th Academy Awards
The 79th Academy Awards ceremony , honored the best films of 2006 and took place on February 25, 2007 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on ABC. Ellen DeGeneres hosted the ceremony for the first time. The producer was Laura Ziskin. The announcers were Don LaFontaine and Gina Tuttle.The nominees were...
for Best Documentary Feature
Academy Award for Documentary Feature
The Academy Award for Documentary Feature is among the most prestigious awards for documentary films.- Winners and nominees:Following the Academy's practice, films are listed below by the award year...
, losing to An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...
. The title refers to a line in the Lord's Prayer
Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...
.
Synopsis
The film chronicles O'Grady's years as a priest in Northern California, where he committed his crimes. After being convicted of child molestation and serving seven years in prison, O'Grady was deportedDeportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
to his native Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, where Berg interviewed him in 2005. Additionally, the film presents trial documents, videotaped deposition
Deposition (law)
In the law of the United States, a deposition is the out-of-court oral testimony of a witness that is reduced to writing for later use in court or for discovery purposes. It is commonly used in litigation in the United States and Canada and is almost always conducted outside of court by the...
s, and interviews with activists, theologians
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
, psychologists
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and lawyers which suggest that not only were Church officials aware of O'Grady's crimes, they actively took steps to conceal them.
Reception
The Irish IndependentIrish Independent
The Irish Independent is Ireland's largest-selling daily newspaper that is published in both compact and broadsheet formats. It is the flagship publication of Independent News & Media.-History:...
criticized Berg for filming children in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
without their knowledge.
The film was very well-received by critics, earning a 100 percent "Fresh" rating from RottenTomatoes.com. As of January 2011, the film ranks eighth on Rotten Tomatoes' list of the best reviewed movies of all time.
After the documentary was shown on Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
national TV in April 2010, members of a parish in Schiedam
Schiedam
Schiedam is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. It is part of the Rotterdam metropolitan area. The city is located west of Rotterdam, east of Vlaardingen and south of Delft...
recognized O'Grady as an active volunteer in the parish until January 2010. His background was unknown to the parishioners. Apart from that he was active in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
as an organizer of children's parties.
Movie claims
The film claims that:- O'Grady is the most notorious child molester in the history of the modern Catholic Church.
- Despite early warning signs and complaints from several parishes, the Church lied to parishioners and local law enforcement while continuing to move O'Grady from parish to parish.
- To protect his career, Roger Mahony, O'Grady's supervising Bishop at the time and current Archbishop of Los Angeles, orchestrated the O'Grady cover-up.
- Church documents prove that since 1973, O'Grady raped and sodomized children with the full knowledge of his CatholicCatholicThe word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
superiors. - The Church was afraid that through the powers of civil discoveryDiscovery (law)In U.S.law, discovery is the pre-trial phase in a lawsuit in which each party, through the law of civil procedure, can obtain evidence from the opposing party by means of discovery devices including requests for answers to interrogatories, requests for production of documents, requests for...
, civil attorneys would discover the Church knew O'Grady had probably molested children prior to his ordination in the late 1960s. - The night before O'Grady was scheduled to provide testimony regarding Mahony's awareness of his history as a child molester and rapist, Mahony's attorneys went to O'Grady's jail cell and cut a deal with him. The deal exchanged O'Grady's silence for a financial annuity: An undisclosed amount of money that the DioceseDioceseA diocese is the district or see under the supervision of a bishop. It is divided into parishes.An archdiocese is more significant than a diocese. An archdiocese is presided over by an archbishop whose see may have or had importance due to size or historical significance...
of Los Angeles will start to pay him once he turns age 65 in 2011. - O'Grady "forced his penisPenisThe penis is a biological feature of male animals including both vertebrates and invertebrates...
into the vaginaVaginaThe vagina is a fibromuscular tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female placental mammals and marsupials, or to the cloaca in female birds, monotremes, and some reptiles. Female insects and other invertebrates also have a vagina, which is the terminal part of the...
of a baby", as stated by Mary Gail Frawley-O'Dea, a clergy abuse psychologist. - Over 100,000 victims of clergy sexual abuse have come forward in the United States alone. The movie also reports that this claim is contradicted, however, by the John Jay ReportJohn Jay ReportThe Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States, commonly known as the John Jay Report, is a 2004 report by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, based on surveys...
commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose figure is of only 4,000 claims covering a period of over 70 years. - Experts say that more than 80 percent of sexual abuseSexual abuseSexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...
victims never report their abuse. - 10% of the graduates of St. John's SeminarySt. John's Seminary (California)St. John's Seminary is a Roman Catholic seminary located in Camarillo, California. It is within the Santa Barbara Pastoral Region of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The seminarians prepare for assignments in dioceses as well as religious orders. St. John's offers the Master of Divinity degree as a...
, which supplies the "vast majority" of the priestsPriesthood (Catholic Church)The ministerial orders of the Catholic Church include the orders of bishops, deacons and presbyters, which in Latin is sacerdos. The ordained priesthood and common priesthood are different in function and essence....
for the West Coast of the United StatesWest Coast of the United StatesWest Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
since 1960, are pedophiles (this claim was attributed to the Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
). - Most countries are just beginning to report clergy abuse.
- Since 1950, sexual abuse has cost to the US Catholic Church over $1 billion in legal settlements and expenses (not including the Los Angeles settlement).
- Pope Benedict XVI was accused of conspiracyConspiracy (crime)In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
to cover up sexual abuse in the United States. At the VaticanHoly SeeThe Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
's request, President George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
granted the pope immunityDiplomatic immunityDiplomatic immunity is a form of legal immunity and a policy held between governments that ensures that diplomats are given safe passage and are considered not susceptible to lawsuit or prosecution under the host country's laws...
from prosecution.
See also
- Catholic sex abuse cases
- Roger Mahony#Sexual abuse cases
- Twist of FaithTwist of FaithTwist of Faith is a 2004 American documentary film directed by Kirby Dick about a man who confronts the Catholic Church about the abuse he suffered as a teenager. The film was produced for the cable network HBO and screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival...
- Roman Catholic priests accused of sex offenses
- Ferns Report, on sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns, Ireland
- Crimen sollicitationisCrimen sollicitationisCrimen sollicitationis is the title of a 1962 document of the Holy Office codifying procedures to be followed in cases of priests or bishops of the Catholic Church accused of having used the sacrament of Penance to make sexual advances to penitents.It repeated, with additions, the contents of an...
- Pontifical SecretPontifical secretThe pontifical secret or pontifical secrecy or papal secrecy is the code of confidentiality that, in accordance with the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church, applies in matters that require greater than ordinary confidentiality:...
- Sex Crimes and the Vatican (Panorama Documentary Episode)
- Barbara BlaineBarbara BlaineBarbara Blaine is the founder and president of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests , a national advocacy group for survivors of clerical sexual abuse. She alleges that she was sexually abused during her teenage years from junior high school until graduation by a priest. She revealed this...
, founder of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by PriestsSurvivors Network of those Abused by PriestsThe Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, established in 1989, is the oldest and most active support group of survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their supporters in the United States...
)