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Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God is a 2012 documentary film directed by Alex Gibney. The film details the first known protest against clerical sex abuse in the United States by four deaf men. It features the voices of actors Jamey Sheridan, Chris Cooper, Ethan Hawke, and John Slattery, who provide the vocal translation of the deaf interviewees.

The title is derived from the Latin phrase “mea culpa“, which translates into English as “through my own fault“.^[1]

Plot

The film follows documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney as he examines the abuse of power in the Catholic Church system through the story of four deaf men who set out to expose the priest who abused them during the mid-1900s. Each of the men brought forth the first known case of public protest against clerical sex abuse, which later lead to the sex scandal case known as the Lawrence Murphy case. Through their case the film follows a cover-up that winds its way from the row houses of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, through the bare ruined choirs of Ireland’s churches, all the way to the highest office of the Vatican.

Release

The film premiered on 9 September 2012 at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.^[2] It later opened in limited release on 16 November 2012,^[3] and will air on HBO in 2013.^[4]

Reaction

Critical response

The film received positive feedback from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 95% of 22 film critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.5 out of 10.^[5] Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, reports the film with a score of 73 based on 15 reviews.^[6]

Mark Jenkins of NPR called the film “Alex Gibney’s most powerful film since the Oscar-winning 2007 Taxi to the Dark Side.”^[7] A. O. Scott of The New York Times particularly praised the way that the interviews of the victims were shot writing, “Mr. Gibney films them, against dark backgrounds with soft, indirect light, emphasizes the expressivity of their faces and hands, and will remind hearing viewers of the richness and eloquence of American Sign Language.”^[8] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times felt the film on a personal level writing, “To someone who was raised and educated in the Catholic school system, as I was, a film like this inspires shock and outrage.” He went on to write that the film “is calm and steady, founded largely on the testimony of Murphy’s victims.”^[9]

Claims of anti-Catholicism

In an article for Catholic World Report, writer David Pierre praised the appearance and testimony of Fr. Murphy’s victims in the work but claimed that the film “takes the unfortunate yet predictable turn in simply using the scandals as a tool to advance a nasty anti-Catholic agenda.” Pierre then cited what he believed to be misleading facts and bigoted sources in the film.^[10] Director Gibney responded to Pierre’s criticism with a comment, and Pierre responded with additional commentary.^[11]

See also

• Twist of Faith (2005), another HBO documentary film about abuse in the Catholic Church.
• Deliver Us from Evil (2006), a documentary about a sex abuse case in North Carolina.
• Child sexual abuse
• Religious abuse
• Spiritual abuse

References

External links

• Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God at the Internet Movie Database
• Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God at Rotten Tomatoes