One of the documentaries being screened in the New Zealand International Film Festival is billed as a “meticulously composed and damning story of a protest against and a cover-up of sexual abuse by a priest in Milwaukee in the 1960s. Its title, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, was made by the prolific Oscar-winning film-maker Alex Gibney.”
The film centres around the sexual abuse committed by Father Lawrence Murphy.
The New Zealand Herald reviewer Peter Calder says “The church would always say it was an American problem or an isolated problem or a few bad apples. This film gives the lie to that excuse: this was systematic and the cover-up was handled in the Vatican.”
Sean Murphy, (not related) writing on the Catholic Education Resource website suggests and alternative point of view. He says that the Vatican was not involved in a cover up. “The cover up of Murphy’s crimes was the work of Milwaukee Archbishop William Cousins. Weakland, his successor, continued to conceal them for some time and let him function as a priest until almost a year after his retirement with virtually no restrictions.”
Murphy does not critique the film as a whole, but “its misrepresentations of the Murphy story, which Mr. Gibney could have told with much greater effect had he paid attention to the evidence, and allowed the evidence to guide his film-making.” He then proceeds to examine that evidence.
Sean Murphy is a Catholic layman. He retired from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 2009 after almost 35 years’ police service. While not a specialist in sexual assault, during the course of his service he was responsible for the investigation of current and historical sex crimes against children and adults (including false allegations), leading, in one case, to the conviction of a Catholic priest.
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