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Priest tells of abusing kids
06/10/2006 11:18 - (SA)
Gillian Flaccus
Los Angeles - The defrocked priest is by turns remorseful and flippant as he recounts in graphic detail a lifetime of sexually abusing children.
Then, near the end of "the most honest confession of my life", he turns to the movie camera to wink and smile at his victims.
Oliver O'Grady's confession is the backbone of a deeply disturbing documentary about the Roman Catholic clergy abuse crisis in one rural Northern California diocese.
O'Grady, 61, was deported to his native Ireland in 2001 after serving seven years in state prison for molesting two brothers.
He has admitted abusing at least 25 children, and cost the Diocese of Stockton millions of dollars to settle lawsuits.
In Deliver Us From Evil, first-time filmmaker Amy Berg uses O'Grady's lengthy narrative to question how much diocese leaders knew about those crimes.
The unrated film, which won best documentary at the LA Film Festival, opens in Los Angeles and New York on October 13.
The film focuses on O'Grady's relationship with Cardinal Roger Mahony, who was his bishop in Stockton in the early 1980s when O'Grady confessed to at least one instance of molestation.
Berg opens the film with O'Grady praying, surrounded by candles. He is pensive and quiet as he reflects on his 22-year career and the trail of pain he left behind.
'It should not have happened'
"I am here because I recognise in my life there has been a major imbalance mainly caused by what I have done in a criminal way," O'Grady says.
"Basically what I want to say to them is, you know, it should not have happened. It should not have happened."
The film then moves through a series of gut-wrenching interviews with several of O'Grady's alleged victims and their parents that hint at the depth of betrayal they feel.
O'Grady has previously said in court depositions that he began abusing others when he was 12 and at one point had sex with two of his victims' mothers to gain access to their children.
These interviews are stark, edited in a no-frills style. There is no narrator, but Berg relies on interviews, clips of court testimony and documents to set a critical tone.
Berg, 36, is unapologetic in her harsh critique of the church leadership. She acknowledges that during interviews O'Grady often acted "like a seven-year-old child", but says that most of what he told her was supported by documents from his private personnel file.
Mahony supervised O'Grady two decades ago when he was bishop of Stockton and transferred him to a rural parish after the priest confessed to his therapist that he had molested a nine-year-old boy. Following the confession, Mahony ordered O'Grady to undergo a psychological evaluation.
O'Grady continued to abuse children at his new posting in rural San Andreas.
Mahony, who appears briefly in the film through videotaped deposition testimony, declined to be interviewed for the documentary.
Los Angeles Archdiocese spokesperson Tod Tamberg has seen the film and called it an "obvious anti-church hit piece" about a man who manipulates everyone around him.
"It wasn't much of a documentary if you ask me. The bottom line of it all is the willingness of everybody to believe the word of a convicted child molester," Tamberg said.
On the net:
www.deliverusfromevilthemovie.com
www.lionsgate.com
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