Synopsis
Academy Award®–winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) explores the charged issue of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, following a trail from the first known protest against clerical sexual abuse in the United States and all way to the Vatican.
Votre Filmothèque
Cast
- Jamey SheridanTerry (voice)
- Chris CooperGary (voice)
- Ethan HawkePat (voice)
- John SlatteryArthur (voice)
- Brady BrysonDeaf Child
- Pope Pius XIHimself (archive footage)
- Benito MussoliniHimself (archive footage)
- Rembert WeaklandSelf - Archbishop of Milwaukee, 1977-2002
Recommandations
- 88
Chicago Sun-Times
Given the grievousness of their sins, one wonders why the church continues to shelter them. Might it not be more appropriate to excommunicate them, and refer them to the attention of the civil authorities? - 83
The Playlist
By turns moving, absorbing and downright rage-inducing. - 83
The A.V. Club
Mea Maxima Culpa is not gentle about placing blame on a structure that elevates priests above the rest of mankind and prioritizes maintaining an appearance of pious perfection over addressing some grievous wrongs committed. - 83
IndieWire
Gibney's narrative drags to some extent when the focus widens to explore the Vatican's overall policy for covering up sex scandals, but he successfully demonstrates the systematic failure of a system designed work flawlessly on the basis of spirituality that never existed in the first place. - 80
Village Voice
Silence might be the most perfect expression of scorn, as the saying goes, but like Edvard Munch's "The Scream," you don't have to hear it to get the horror. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
Damning documentary pairs an individual sex-abuse case with analysis of institutional dysfunction at the Vatican. - 70
Variety
A powerful, necessary contribution to a chilling body of reportage that, one senses by film's end, has just begun to take stock of the human costs of a monstrous conspiracy. - 70
New York Magazine (Vulture)
Beyond the Mafia-like code of silence, it comes down to this: The guys at the top reserved their compassion for priests like Father Murphy in the belief that the boys were young and would get over it. No one of true faith will get over Maxima Mea Culpa.