Have just got back from Dublin after seeing 'Mea Maxima Culpa' - Silence in the House of God, a documentary on the emerging of the earliest revelations of the clerical abuse scandal that (hopefully) will remove any temporal influence the church may have on the lives of any human being anywhere on this planet.
The film begins with the systematic abuse of deaf children by Milwaukee priest, Father Lawrence Murphy. It goes on to describe the lengths three of the abused children went to to bring these crimes to the attention of the public, and the lengths the church went to to cover up the abuses and to keep Father Murphy in office so he could continue to work with deaf children and continue to abuse them.
The last section of the film shows how the Vatican reacted to the revelations of world-wide clerical abuse, from refusing to co-operate with the investigation of these crimes, to denying access to relevant documents and information, even to declaring The Vatican a separate State and therefore immune to prosecution for or implication in any of these crimes.
The retiring pope, who denied any knowledge of these crimes until the abuses became public knowledge, in fact lied. As an archbishop he was put in charge of dealing with all reported child abuses by clerics - every single reported case of clerical child abuse that became known to the church, or even suspected, passed through his hands.
Up to the present day The Vatican holds these and many other such documents in its archives and refuses access to them in order to protect the abusers and the reputation, wealth and (remaining) influence of church.
One interesting fact (to me at least) revealed by the film was that the earliest recorded case of child abuse by a cleric took place 1,700 years ago - it's been going on a long, long, long time.
I don't know who the next pope will be but I hope it is somebody honest, decent and brave enough to deal with these massive number of serial crimes, acknowledge the church establishment's role in them and bring some sort of closure to the surviving victims - but somehow, I doubt it.
I would make MEA MAXIMA CULPA - Silence in the House of God obligatory viewing to anybody who doubts the facts of these crimes; in fact, it wouldn't be any harm for anybody working with and having influence over children to treat themselves to a couple of hours worth of unremitting horror.
Jim Carroll