There is something that we all find incredibly horrific about stories where someone is hurt or harmed by another person that they were supposed to be able to trust. A daughter who is sexually abused by her father. A parent killed by their child. A best friend betraying another. And a priest abusing children. Such is the focus of the new documentary “Deliver us from Evil“.
My friend Jay over at The Documentary Blog gives us this about the project:
For those of you who haven’t heard, O’Grady is the ’star’ of the film, recounting his days as both a pedophile and a servant of God with great candor.
In the film, the former priest also talks about how the actions of his superiors, moving him from parish to parish, helped him with his stalking, and now those superiors are under the eye of the law, thanks to the film.
The second saddest part about all this Priest abuse stuff (obviously the MOST sad thing is the damage done to the kids) is what these monsters have also done to the reputation of priests everywhere. I remember watching an episode of “The Practice” a few years ago (The show that Boston Legal was spun off from) where the lead character had a heated argument with his priest about the abuse scandals in the church. This priest was a good man. He lamented about how less than 1% of priest do such horrible things, and yet now all priests are looked at as child molesters… and that more than 1% of Americans commit 2nd level or higher crimes, yet we don’t say all Americans are thieves and murderers or rapists. He makes a good point.
However, as I mentioned at the top of this post… we don’t expect better from the average person. We’re not taught to trust the average person as we are taught to trust priests (or other people of “the cloth”). Yes, 1% is rare… BUT RARE ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH WHEN IT COMES TO THOSE WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO TRUST.
The fact that a human being did something that horrific is bad enough… but that someone in authority over him helped cover it up is… well… unforgivable. Maybe this movie causes enough heat that these people who covered up the crime will eventually face justice too. We can only hope.
