Deliver Us from Evil
Directed by Amy Berg
Lionsgate
2006
Rating:


Enabled by a Catholic Church eager to cover up its sins rather than confess them, Father Oliver O'Grady was allowed to sexually abuse hundreds of children in Southern California during the 1970s and 1980s, forming a geographic circle of cruelty as he was transferred from church-to-church before his misdeeds could be exposed.

Amy Berg's "Deliver Us from Evil" even-handedly details O'Grady's reign of terror, allowing O'Grady to speak for himself for, as he says, "the most honest confession of my life." O'Grady remembers his victims almost nostalgically, smiling and laughing despite the lives he destroyed. His pathology is such that he hand-writes letters to all of the victims he can remember and invites them to visit him in Ireland — where he has lived since 2000 after serving seven years for four counts of abuse — so he can apologize in person.

Those O'Grady preyed upon, now adults, have since freed themselves from O'Grady's manipulation, although the effects of their sexual and spiritual abuse still linger. Bob Jyono, the father of victim Ann, is driven to tears as he recalls how "the whole world collapsed" when he learned of his daughter's mistreatment. The church's use of the term "molestation" to describe what happened to Ann sparks his rage: "Molesting? He raped her." Berg follows Catholic Church critic Father Tom Doyle as he works with Ann and the other victims in an attempt to gain justice from a malfeasant hierarchy that includes Los Angeles' current archbishop, President George W. Bush and Pope Benedict XVI, but their prayers fall on deaf ears.

Posted Saturday, January 20, 2007

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