I
want to thank Alex Gibney for taking the time to reply
to my
analysis of his new documentary film, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God. Any good and honest
writer appreciates constructive feedback, as it certainly can be applied to the
never-ending desire to grow in one’s craft.
Unfortunately,
I found Gibney’s reply to my article neither helpful nor forthcoming, as the
director trots out yet another parade of red herrings and half-truths.
In
responding to Mr. Gibney, I would also like to add that my article for CWR
barely scratches the surface of the volumes that can be said about his new
film.
Mea Maxima
Culpa
is an anti-Catholic broadside masquerading as a documentary. Not including the
victims who are profiled, Gibney has assembled one of the largest collections
of reckless malcontents and Church bashers ever gathered in one film. Gibney’s
project is mean-spirited in tone and approach, and the director’s agitated
reply to my article only reinforces this.
1.
First and foremost, I want to address his attack against Fr. Thomas Brundage,
the judicial vicar of Milwaukee from 1995 to 2003, who has spoken poignantly of
his work with the victims of Fr. Lawrence Murphy.
Unlike
Gibney, I actually spoke with Fr. Brundage on the telephone. As I talked with
him, his dedication to the victims, his desire for justice, and his love of the
Church were truly palpable. This is obviously a good man and a good priest who
always strived to do the right thing in the Murphy case.
And
now Gibney besmirches the priest as “forgetful, mendacious or irresponsibly
inaccurate” merely because, in a mountain of documents about the case spanning
several years, he was unable to independently and magically recall in his
memory a draft of a letter from twelve years earlier that was composed
within days of Fr. Murphy’s death. (Murphy was likely dead by the time the letter
even made it to its overseas destination at the Vatican.)
Anyone
with even a vague idea about the typical day of a Catholic priest, especially
one in a demanding position such as the one that Fr. Brundage held, knows that
priests often deal with numerous letters, documents, forms, and messages on a
daily basis. To castigate a priest for failing to remember a particular letter
from over a decade earlier is both silly and unfair.
And
even though one should hardly apologize for failing to remember such a letter
from so much time earlier, Fr. Brundage did so, and he did so profusely. It is
a testament to the goodness of the man, yet Gibney (and the New York Times, for
that matter) have bludgeoned him for it.
2.
Gibney dismisses Fr. Brundage as a source, yet Gibney has corralled several
individuals for his project whose integrity, I believe, falls far short for any
professional filmmaker in search of accuracy.
Two
such interview subjects in his work are Patrick J. Wall and Fr. Thomas P.
Doyle, both of whom have an extensive history of animosity against the Catholic
Church.
Notably,
both Doyle and Wall have written about issues of canon law on behalf of contingency
lawyers suing the Catholic Church. However, while Gibney presents these men as
experts in Church matters, the pair’s knowledge and skills leave something to
be desired.
In
a recently dismissed lawsuit against the Holy See, veteran canon lawyer Dr. Ed
Peters, one of the most respected men in his field (and one who also has a
civil law degree), reviewed declarations for the case about canon law written
by both Wall and Doyle. He then proceeded to shred the pair’s claims in a
103-page rebuttal. Peters found their work to be “incomplete and misleading in several
crucial respects” and containing “profound” and “significant” mistakes and
errors. The pair’s characterizations of canon law “reflect a basic lack of
understanding regarding the nature of canon law itself,” concluded Peters.
The
few words I’ve quoted here hardly do justice to the utter
smack-down of Wall and Doyle that Peters leveled. In a nutshell, a
lot of what these men have said and written about the Catholic Church has been
discredited.
Gibney
should be embarrassed. The number of outright falsehoods and misleading claims
in his film about Church history, teaching, and operations could fill a number
of articles. I have documented many of these, and in the coming weeks people
can look for posts about these issues at TheMediaReport.com. A couple months
ago, I posted a rebuttal
to the film’s trailer.
3.
Gibney claims that “Archbishop [William E.] Cousins did not act swiftly. Nor
did he show sympathy toward the victims. He lectured the victims for maligning
Father Murphy.”
Gibney
is obviously displeased that my article exposed a dated timeline about
Archbishop Cousins’ handling of the Murphy case. The undeniable truth is that
within days after a May 9, 1974 meeting to discuss Fr. Murphy, the abusive
priest was “relieved of all teaching and pastoral duties as they relate to the
students” at St. John’s School for the Deaf. Considering the entrenched
leadership roles that Murphy held at the school, these actions were no small
measures.
We
also know that by September, not only was Murphy gone from St. John’s
completely, but he was moving nearly 300
miles away to live with his mother, and never received a formal assignment
ever again.
Exposing
this timeline is very inconvenient to Mr. Gibney, because it exhibits documented
actions by the Church, and it conflicts with the film’s claim that the victims
“got nowhere” with the Church. In response to this documentation, Gibney throws
out some red herring statements and claims, many of which have nothing to do
with my analysis of his film.
For
example, Gibney attacks Archbishop Cousins because the late archbishop
reportedly did not “ask” the victims about Murphy’s abuse because they were
“deaf.” Gibney thinks this observation is somehow notable, when, in fact, this
acknowledgement may actually bolster the position that Cousins already believed the abuse claims to be real and credible. And, as we know, the archbishop did something about it.
Gibney
also claims that the only reason that Cousins acted the way he did in 1974 was
because parents threatened to go public and sue. This assertion seems very odd.
Victims of Murphy did go public. A year earlier at least one victim had
already reported Murphy to the police. We also know that victims went out to
the streets and put numerous flyers on the windshields of people’s cars,
including that of the local district attorney. (And we know how all of this
turned out; the police did nothing. Gibney has downplayed this important fact.)
And as far as lawsuits, one was filed in 1975, and it was settled a year later.
Would
it be nice to have more clarity about Cousins’ thinking and actions over the
years regarding the Murphy case? Of course, but Cousins died nearly a quarter
of a century ago at age 86, and it seems there is very little contemporaneous
documentation of some particulars of certain events.
4.
Gibney also wrote, “Archbishop Cousins’ predecessor, Archbishop [Albert
Gregory] Meyer, also allowed Murphy’s behavior to go unpunished despite
complaints.” Gibney clearly implies that Meyer never did anything about Murphy.
However,
according to a 1997 letter written by Fr. David Walsh, who was a chaplain for
the deaf at the time of the events at issue, Murphy actually admitted abuse to
Archbishop Meyer. Meyer then
sent Murphy to a “retreat house in Northern Wisconsin and told [him]
to return to St. John’s to undue (sic) the harm he had done.”
Notice
that Meyer did apparently acknowledge that “harm” had been done to victims. To
be sure, the “punishment” is not nearly the same kind we would witness by
today’s rightfully heightened standards. But Meyer, whose last year as
archbishop was in 1958, was
unfortunately acting according to the mores of his day, when acts of
pedophilia, hebephilia, and ephebophilia were largely managed as psychological
and spiritual issues, rather than criminal ones. This is a sad and tragic fact,
but undeniably true.
5.
Gibney repeats the claim (which he makes in his film a number of times) that
the Vatican was somehow aware of Fr. Murphy’s abuse as the time it was
occurring (the 1950s to the early 1970s).
I
actually addressed this exact scenario by noting the problems that the Church
and society as a whole would have faced if this were indeed the case. I suggest
that Gibney go back and read my piece.
6.
Regarding my section addressing the debate about Pope John Paul II’s actions
following the reports of abuse by Fr. Marcial Maciel, Gibney becomes apoplectic
over the fact that I incorrectly heard and transcribed one measly pronoun (“it”
instead of “him”) from the narration in his movie. Gibney sees this error as
evidence for his conclusion that I “excoriate[d] a film for a quote that never
existed.”
In
truth, whether or not Gibney says the late pontiff “celebrated it (Macial’s abuse)” or he “celebrated him (Maciel himself),” the director’s
message is essentially the same. Gibney seeks to smear John Paul II as
dismissive of and callous about the abuse of children by priests.
In
an April 2002 message to the cardinals of the United States, John Paul II could
not have been blunter. The abuse of children by priests is a “crime” and an
“appalling sin” that has caused victims “suffering,” “scandal,” and “great harm.”
“People
need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for
those who would harm the young,” the Pope
asserted.
John
Paul II’s remarks are hardly emblematic of someone who “celebrated” abusive
priests, especially ones like the monstrous and deceitful Maciel.
7.
Gibney ends his reply to my article with a personal attack on me by asking
whether I “create facts to make [myself] feel better as a slavish defender of
abuses of power.”
In
truth, this is one attack for which I will not fault Gibney. The director does
not know me, and neither is he familiar with the years of writing I have done
on this important issue.
In
the years I have been writing about the issue of the media’s treatment of sex
abuse and the Catholic Church, I have always strived to be mindful that this is
an extremely grave and delicate topic. I have never defended any wrongdoing
whatsoever. As I’ve stated countless times before, the abuse of minors by
Catholic priests has wreaked incalculable harm upon victims. This fact should
always be front and center in any treatment
of the subject.
In
closing, I should repeat the fact that I made an extensive and sincere effort to speak with Gibney about his film. I spoke with
his publicist over the phone, and our talk was cordial and professional.
However, I felt that when she got the sense that my take on the film was
less-than-glowing, there was a bit of resistance to my request to talk with the
director. I politely followed up our conversation by both phone and email, but
I never heard anything.
In
far less time than Gibney took to compose his reply to me, he could have called
me and responded to some of my issues with the film. We also would have been
able to mend the little “it”-versus-“him” glitch, as it was certainly a line I
wanted to ask him about.
I extend the
opportunity to speak with Gibney about his film if he wishes, as long as it is
in a courteous manner. I am sure that his publicist still has all of my contact
information.
[Editor's note: Due to an editing oversight and miscommuncation, this post contained a line that did not reflect the views of its author regarding Bl. John Paul II and Maciel. It has been removed. We regret the error.]