Filmmaker Amy Berg recounts a harrowing story of child abuse and how a serial child molester went free for the better part of two decades in this documentary. Oliver O’Grady was a Catholic priest who served in a number of parishes in Southern California during the 1970s and ’80s. O’Grady was also a habitual child molester who abused dozens of youngsters who were entrusted to his care, and while his superiors in the church were aware of O’Grady’s crimes as early as 1973, they opted to simply move him from one congregation to another rather than turn him in to authorities or strip him of his ordination.

In Deliver Us From Evil, a number of O’Grady’s victims and their families discuss his crimes and the repercussions they feel to this day. O’Grady himself also appears in the film, speaking candidly about his career as a sexual predator and recounting his misdeeds in detail. (After finally being convicted of child sexual abuse, O’Grady served time in prison and now lives in Ireland, where he is still looked after by Catholic clergy.)

Berg also offers a look into the history of the Catholic Church and how its leadership has often protected those within the hierarchy at the expense of their worshipers. Deliver Us From Evil was named Best Documentary Feature at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival. (Mark Deming, All Movie Guide)

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A devastating investigation into the pedophilia scandals tearing apart the Catholic Church, Deliver Us From Evil begins by looking into one priest, Father Oliver O’Grady, who agreed to be interviewed by journalist/filmmaker Amy Berg. O’Grady’s genial calm is at first ingratiating, until he begins to describe his crimes with an unsettling sociopathic detachment.

But O’Grady’s blithe interview is only half of the story, as the documentary also unveils how church superiors covered up O’Grady’s crimes and shuffled him from diocese to diocese in northern California, finally placing him in an unsupervised position of authority in a small town, where he sexually assaulted dozens of children; the video deposition of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney is a grotesque portrait in brittle denial. What makes Deliver Us From Evil crucial viewing, however, are the remarkable interviews with a few of the victims (now adults) and their parents, whose stories are wrenching and riveting.

With the support of a priest seeking to reform the church, two of the victims actually go to the Pope, seeking some form of help in addressing O’Grady’s crimes. This stunningly potent documentary combines raw feeling with lucid and persuasive discussions of the reasons for - and disturbing breadth of - this crisis within the Church. (Amazon)