Mea Maxima Culpa

Alex Gibney : 2012
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God

Using personal stories to explore larger systems of corruption, the director follows the five deaf men who led the first known public protest against clerical sex abuse in the United States. At St John's School for the Deaf in St Francis, Wisconsin, Father Lawrence Murphy preyed upon more than 200 of his most vulnerable students beginning in the 1950s. His actions came to the attention of the Vatican in 1963 and he remained at the school until 1974, when he was transferred to another parish. Finally, one of the five deaf survivors of Murphy's abuse launched a lawsuit against the pontiff himself and the ensuing investigation uncovered documents linking the Vatican to a worldwide cover-up of abuse. Alex Gibney's investigation leads from Wisconsin to Washington DC, Ireland, Rome and beyond. He delves into the unsavoury role that Pope John Paul II played in cover-ups and examines the pivotal position occupied by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – the recently resigned Pope Benedict XVI – a former Vatican overseer of sex abuse cases. The documentary is a damning indictment of how the Vatican consistently failed to protect children and the supreme efforts it made to cover up those failings. The film premiered at Toronto International Film Festival 2012 and was the winner of the Grierson Award at the British Film Institute Awards 2012.