Film on Pedophile Priest Revives Focus on Cardinal

Lionsgate

Oliver O’Grady, a former priest who describes in a film how he abused children in California for 20 years, in a park in Ireland recently.

JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Published: October 7, 2006

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 6 — A documentary film featuring an extraordinarily candid interview with a former priest convicted of molesting children has heightened interest among law enforcement officials here in considering a criminal case against Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, says a prosecutor who has been investigating sexual abuse cases involving priests.

In the documentary, “Deliver Us From Evil,” the former priest, Oliver O’Grady, describes how he abused young boys and girls across central California over 20 years, including a period in the 1980’s when Cardinal Mahony was his superior as the bishop in Stockton.

The former priest, who lives in Ireland, said he was able to continue abusing children in part because of actions by Cardinal Mahony, who now heads the country’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, here in Los Angeles, and is among the church’s most influential American leaders. Mr. O’Grady says in the film that as bishop in Stockton, the cardinal moved him from parish to parish in the face of abuse accusations..."

Website for "Deliver Us From Evil"

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Damian Dovarganes/Associated Press. Amy Berg, director of the film, at a protest against sexual abuse last month at the Los Angeles cathedral.

¿Que diablos le sucede a los sacerdotes? Estas YA NO SON anomalías. Es un problema sistémico de las entrañas de la iglesia católica. ¿Qué neurosis, que traumas producen que estos hombres enfermen a este nivel, y peor aún, que otros los encubran? Es algo tremendamente podrido que no crea propio del siglo XX, sino quizá de siglos... y ahora gracias a los medios y a los tribunales separados de lo religioso nos enteramos. ¿Qué crimenes siguen aún impunes dentro de las paredes de las iglesias del mundo?