The Church: Code of Silence

The Church: Code of Silence

2017, Religion  -   18 Comments
8.59
12345678910
Ratings: 8.59/10 from 39 users.

Despite its widespread exposure in recent years, the scourge of pedophilia in the church continues. The hierarchy in the Catholic Church is expert in disguising cases of abuse and protecting the perpetrators through relocation. The Church: Code of Silence explores these systemic cover-ups.

The investigation leads the filmmakers through Cameroon, Argentina, Italy and the United States. They uncover a conspiracy of silence and injustice that is fully sanctioned by those who are looked upon as protectors. Members of the clergy who have been accused of sexual abuses to minors are far too often relocated to other churches across the globe, and their access to children remains unabated.

The scope of the epidemic is made clear in the early moments of the film. The filmmakers attend an annual consortium of abuse victims called SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests). There, they meet many hundreds of adults who converge in activism against the structures that permitted their abuses as youngsters. Attendees travel from places like Chile, the Philippines and Berlin.

In France, the documentary crew tracks down an accused priest who has been wanted by Canadian law enforcement for nearly two decades. He's one of countless priests who have been protected by the church and hidden from the purview of persecution for their crimes.

The conspiracy leads to the very top of the power structure within the church. The investigation implicates Pope Francis by exposing the crucial role he played in protecting a sexual abuser while he was serving as a bishop in Buenos Aires.

The film also presents interviews with whistleblowers whose loyalties to the church have corroded since the eruption of these sexual abuse scandals, and officials who have been assigned to commissions designed to curb incidents of abuse in the church.

Generations of victims have come forward to detail their years of abuse and lingering trauma at the hands of priests they knew and trusted. The hope has been that the Catholic Church would impose a series of regulations that would effectively put an end to these horrors. The Church: Code of Silence shows that they still have a long way to go.

Directed by: Martin Boudot

More great documentaries

guest

18 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
jon
jon
3 years ago

get rid of the infuriating click track

cheers!

Cris Sale
Cris Sale
3 years ago

Rape case by the priests is just a side dish issue I suppose. I grew up in an strict Catholic community in the Philippines (FYI, the only Catholic Country in Asia). Priests or the Catholic church did not only raped children/young, our ancestors were also stripped off by their lands and became enslaved in their own country! Love has never been the subject of spreading Catholicism in the Philippines but slavery and corruption by the Spanish/Roman/Vatican Church.

Jon doe
Jon doe
3 years ago

Join a church, get molested

Pachacouti
Pachacouti
4 years ago

Ah celebrate. Think Matrix. Think Nebuchadnezza. Here we have a bunch of Zionist's at the same game, Nebuchadnezza who had sex with kids as soon as they hit 1 yr old. Putin and Trumo in this same zionist movement, and why government's want to lower the age of consent. Nuff said on these sicko's, apart from this: Communism is ruled by a jew as much as america. Go figure.

gerald
gerald
4 years ago

What can you expect when you have a pope who is a communist? Sending these pedophile priests to Africa and Latin America might not be such a bad idea because if they misbehave there the local people might very well take the law into their own hands as they often do. So when will we see a documentary about coverup of pedophilia by Imams? ...or are the documentarians paid off by radical Islamist supremacists or too cowardly to investigate them due to fears of violent retaliation? Pedophilia is far more common and widely accepted in Islamic countries than it is in Christian ones. Male on male pedophilia is especially rampant and accepted in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan and has been so for millennia

paul caden
paul caden
4 years ago

As an Irish Catholic in my youth I was brainwashed to the point I wanted to become a priest. They took me to seminaries just before puberty and almost stole my life but my father made me wait one more year after which I realized what a horrendous mistake I almost made.

mac
mac
4 years ago

people who willfully put their children in such proximity to known and wanton child molesters should have their heads examined. Animals do a better job of protecting their young.

GeezLouise
GeezLouise
4 years ago

And...this cover up is only one of the reasons I do not follow any organized religion, especially Catholicism. Anyone who does not address these pedophilia priests behaviors are also part of the problem.

Melissa
Melissa
4 years ago

The Qu'ran's Warnings Regarding Christianity:
“If only they [i.e. Christians] had stood fast by the Law, the Gospel, and all the revelation that was sent to them from their Lord, they would have enjoyed happiness from every side. There is from among them a party on the right course, but many of them follow a course that is evil" (5:66).

Ken Kelly
Ken Kelly
4 years ago

The Catholic Church has been a haven for homosexuals for hundreds of years. Other Christian groups also have a lot to answer for. Religions were designed to control the people that is why Constantine chose this at the time a rag tag group and made them the official religion then backed them up with the roman army. It soon became either be Christian or be banished and if you do not leave then dead. The Church and Roman law were one and the same. Religions are not what they claim to be.

Jair
Jair
4 years ago

When a supposedly Christian leader lies with such confidence, there is nothing left but to abandon that church. For some reason Jesus chose those words , Babylon the Great Whore!