Review of Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012) by Stephen C — 16 Jun 2013

Facinating documentary about abuse and the Catholic church and how the church hushed up alligations going back to the 60s.

The film starts in a church run school for the deaf where boys barely in into there teens where abused by the preist who was meant to look after them.

Director Alex Gibney allows the now grown up boys to vent there anger at the system that failed them and how despite many pleas little or nothing was done as preists were seen to be above all the laws as they were men of the cloth.

The film then moves its focus to the Vactican itself and how a preist close to pope John Paul the Second was a massive morphine addict and serial abuser of boys.

The Vactican is show to not bother or even cover up these allegations which spread through the church like a cancer causing many to challenge there own faith.

Gibneys film pulls no punches in its critcism of the chuch and Cardinal Ratzinger who of course became pope in 2005 and had been tasked with dealing with abuse cases.

The film shows how the church dragged it heels and even thought they could cure paedophile preists by sending them to specialist centres.

The church comes off in a very bad light indeed and the victims are brave and determined individuals who are determined to see justice served even if it means hiring lawyers to sue the church for failing them.

A film which will make you question your own faith and how men of god abuse that lofty position.