Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God + Q&A at Curzon Soho

For more than 25 years at St John’s School for the Deaf in St Francis, Wisconsin, the Catholic priest Lawrence C Murphy got away with sexually abusing pupils. He has been accused of molesting as many as 200 boys. Despite testimonies from victims and repeated warnings from American Archbishops that Murphy could be an embarrassment to the Church, the Vatican took little action. The latest documentary from Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney uses the shocking case of Father Murphy as a starting point to build a damning indictment of the Catholic Church’s reaction to the worldwide child abuse outrage that continues to engulf the institution. With righteous anger and bold integrity, Gibney presents a thoroughly researched film detailing how the Vatican consistently failed to protect children and the efforts it made to cover up those failings. Mea Maxima Culpa stands as a significant document of one of the most appalling scandals of our times, and a valid tribute to the campaigning victims of abuse.