Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012)

Simply Perfect

As Good As It Gets

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I swear, this really will make you feel even more angry at the catholic church for not admitting the wrongdoings of their priests who molested children for absolutely no reason. One of the men were so brave to show up to Murphy's house and tell him how he was such a disgusting pig for touching them. I swear I would shut abuse too since he is a dirty pervert who should be hanged and I can tell ya, I bet he p*ssed his pants every day he got up the first thing. His deaf housekeeper was such a b*tch for pushing one of the men away from Murphy, that woman must really worship this guy. Seriously, it doesn't matter if she was deaf or not, she should wake up to reality and think of how child sexual abuse is a serious crime here. I honestly thought Terry Kohut, Gary Smith, Pat Kuehn and Arthur Budzinski are just wonderful men who came forward this dark secret they had from long ago. They are survivors and they should realise how lucky they are to be alive today to tell the tale. This documentary is a good example of what went on during those times and like, you need to see it y'all, it is one to watch!

What good is a movie about DEAF people if it isn't captioned? I was really looking forward to seeing this documentary as it presents a view about a particular group of individuals that are hidden behind the scenes of the issue of sexual abuse within the church. I could not watch it. At first it shows students in an oral/aural setting in school so I waited to see if it would then go on to interviews in ASL (American Sign Language). Indeed it did, the individuals who were interviewed used ASL but if there were questions being asked, the interviewer was not on screen signing the questions to them. Then it goes on to show interviews with another individual and church scenes and there is no open or closed captioning. This is an important issue that needs to be seen/heard and is finally brought out into the open audience and yet without captioning, it is closed to the very community to which it is addressed. I am very disappointed that I was not able to watch this documentary because it has not been made accessible to the Deaf community by providing captioning for us. This is 2015, there is no reason why captioning could not be provided for this documentary.

Firstly just to express total solidarity with the deaf men of Milwaukee Wisconsin who suffered at the hands of serial child sex abuser Fr. Laurence C. Murphy. Secondly to say I'm an Irish Catholic and knew the singing priest Fr. Tony Walsh - 'Fr. Elvis' - as a boy. A number of pedophiles accessed my family, sexually grooming and serial abusing and in the Dublin of the day the culture of pederasty was pervasive. Thirdly allow me open by asking people to consider Fr. Murphy's excuses - offered in therapy:A). 'There was rampant homosexuality amongst the boys. I fixed the problem'; B). I thought if I played around with a kid once per week they would have their needs met'; C). I thought I was taking their sins on myself'; D). It was self-education for them they were confused about sex'; E). Would feel penis. If erect would masturbate them'; F). Afterward I prayed and went to confession'.The man felt he was doing good not evil. How then was his moral compass so distorted and disorientated? Would cyber porn producers and users of child porn today offer better excuses? - we've heard them and know them to be equally self-serving and delusional. Being homosexual was universally taboo up until the 1980's and it was considered better to be sexually disorientated or sexually dysfunctional with a view to a life of celibacy, secular or priestly. But for all their crimes no perverted Roman Catholic priest that I am aware of was ever charged with the crime of rape and murder common enough among pedophiles and rapists. Now this may be difficult but consider modern porn and its rapaciousness. Consider the fact that most porn is not only about the objectification and exploitation of women but also about their brutalization. Pedophilia is rampant and causally peppered through main stream cyber porn which rapidly descends from relative eroticism to utter abomination.So what has happened is that consent is all that's is required to make sexual abuse permissible today even if the person is a minor; even if the woman simply signed up for sex and not the brutalizing desecration of her body; even if the sex was consenting but the permission to broadcast & circulate was not. Cyber porn is so controversial that Google maintains it is not responsible for acting as the international traffic cop and seemed curiously resigned to compromising its own browser Google Chrome with its competitors search engines. Because Google understand the corporate tornado on the horizon, cyber porn being a record - in most instances - of sex crime, knowing that many of the victims will sue. It makes me feel like signing up for a course in Swedish rape law because this makes the Juliann Assange case - which involved the charges 'Sex by surprise' and 'Sex with too much asking', - seem like a great idea. How about 'Sex with brutalizing & degrading consequences'; 'Sex for the purpose of making porn without consent'; 'Sex with adolescents too stoned & too immature to know the implications of what they were doing', and 'Sex for the purpose of sexually re-orientating and dis-orientating the victim'? So what has happened is that we have simply changed the definition and function of sexual terrorism from repression to 'sexual liberation'. The Catholic Church has stood up to the plate, paid the price and yet the accusatory finger still points towards the past. But the Church must reform the celibate model of priesthood which according to former Benedictine Richard Sipes 'Selects, cultivates, protects, defends and produces sexual abusers'.This is a marvelous and sympathetic movie about a wonderfully courageous group of deaf men who show us the meaning of the word solidarity. It provides a valuable and necessary understanding of the errors of the past without seeking to agitate, animate or radicalise. But one must ask the Director Alex Gibney to consider the far more perilous issue of cyber porn and modern sexual values and just where we are heading with the rate of homosexuality rising towards 25% in Cosmopolitan & Metropolitan areas where stable 'straight',and monogamous family units are rapidly becoming vestigial. Judging from cyber porn there are those so liberated that it is a wonder they are not permanently incontinent. Can a woman really have animalistic sex with two men hung like donkeys and ever hope to function properly again; and why do women cast themselves in the role of sexual gladiators? In terms of the police phrase used in the documentary to describe pedophilia in the Catholic Church 'Noble cause corruption', might not those advocating the GLBTQ, Libertine and Hedonist agendas consider whether the term now also applies to their sexual crusade?At the Sea of Tiberius as Jesus watched St. Peter leap from the boat with almost nothing on he knew St. Peter had sexual issues and was at least immodest in that most sublime of Biblical scenes from John 21 titled 'The Restoration of St. Peter'. He had also chastened the Disciple Nathanael at the time of his recruitment, three years earlier, for spending too much time under "The Fig Tree", (John 2: 48). And yet Nathanael is at the scene at the Sea of Tiberius to witness the risen Jesus prepare a meal for his followers and take St. Peter aside, to chasten and prepare him for the way ahead. Please God Pope Benedict XVI's successor Pope Francis is up for a restoration of the priesthood. And as a secular adult community surely we can also rise to this debate given that we see fit to rise to just about every and any other kind of bait? Let me conclude by offering a quote from the retired gay Archbishop of Milwaukee Most Reverend Rembert Weakland (1977-2002) for this is by far the wisest statement to emerge from this challenging documentary:We're a Church of imperfect people. Jesus wasn't afraid of humanity and we shouldn't be either'

Are you aroused by molesting, abusing or raping young boys? If you could work for an employer that would let you indulge in these perversions whilst at the same time safeguarding you from prosecution, would a career with them be appealing? If the answer is yes, then the Catholic Church might be the place for you.The above, sadly, does not come from my deranged mind but it is the key theme in this harrowing documentary.It turns out that the combination of old fashioned "such blasphemous accusations come from enemies of the church" combined with a collusion form Mussolini that granted Vatican a state status thus exempting its leader from any prosecution, has resulted in an unprecedented cover up of crimes against humanity - essentially what child rape is.The story focuses on three individual cases of deaf boys in a Catholic school in the US, who although molested repeatedly by a priest-predator their cries were totally ignored as it turns out the agenda of the church was not to protect victims but its very own name and reputation.Whilst the unfolding of the story is devastating for the viewer (would have been so if it were fiction, let alone when it is reality) at the same time the perseverance of these victims and their refusal to give up pursuing this, not for the purposes of revenge but to ensure no other child suffers such fate is utterly moving and inspiring.More shocking than the facts alone, was the revelation that there has been an array of offending priests and an entire hierarchy going all the way to the highest echelons of the Vatican have joined forces to cover up such incidents, makes it hard to find any words to describe the river of emotions the viewer experiences.Ultimately, whilst Jesus remains the epitome of selfless philanthropy, it is a church that has an unfortunate track record not only in perversions committed but also perversions covered and perverts protected; no other instance comes to mind where so many sex predators can get away with so many committed crimes.I can only hope that the loud cries of these deaf boys, now men, can bring about winds of change and those who genuinely care about the reputation of the Catholic church ought to ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice.An emotional, difficult but highly recommended and didactic viewing.