Recounting a pedophile nightmare

Recounting a pedophile nightmare
Thursday, January 18, 2007

And now a new kind of monster. A child molester and rapist who doesn't
show much remorse.

Father Oliver Francis O'Grady, Father "Ollie" to his parishioners in
northern California, is at the center of "Deliver Us From Evil,"
writer-director Amy Berg's fascinating and disturbing documentary
playing tonight and Saturday at the Cleveland Institute of Art
Cinematheque.

It's everything we've been reading and hearing in recent years about
the nightmare endeavors of pedophile priests within the Catholic
Church. But put together for one sitting, Berg's film cracks open the
dam and creates new streams of outrage.








Berg has victims, their families, theologians and, amazingly, O'Grady
himself, recounting the tortured tales. After abusing dozens of
children for at least 20 years, he finally was arrested and tried in
1993. After serving seven years of a 14-year sentence, O'Grady was
deported to Ireland in 2000.

He tries to explain his attraction to children (he raped or abused
girls and boys, the youngest was 9 months old), but soft-sells the
incidents. Adding to the creepiness is O'Grady's flip, sing-song,
hey-diddle-doodle attitude about the whole horrible saga.

Berg's investigation starts slow but builds in substance and emotion.

The excruciating, decades-old pain of the victims and their families is
palpable. The most pathetic participant in the whole ugly ordeal is the
hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Instead of trying to help the
children, O'Grady's superiors, including current Archbishop of Los
Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney, followed the standard strategy: deny,
deceive, cover up, relocate.

The church knew of O'Grady's crimes as early as 1973. It promised to do
something but never did. It simply transferred him. In 1978 he was
moved to a parish about an hour away where he abused more children. He
was moved again in 1982 and 1984, always finding new victims.

One family only learned of the crimes many years later. They had
invited "Ollie" to sleep at their house several times. At night he
raped their 5-year-old daughter. In the morning they'd find him in the
living room reading his Bible and sipping tea.

Perhaps Berg's most telling point is that none of this is over. Even
after several highly publicized, multimillion dollar settlements, there
are still cases pending against hundreds of priests in the United
States.

Needless to say, church leaders declined to be interviewed for the film
(a few appear in footage from their depositions). Some of the victims
recently went to the Vatican hoping for some kind of apology. They
weren't allowed in.