| By Amy Berg The essence of documentaries is the power they possess to inform their audience more thoroughly than the headlines that seek to capture subjects in catchphrases. There's so much more to stories than their attention-grabbing titles and what we think we know. The news distills abridged versions of the world's issues, and people - "characters" - are left with their stories half told, propagating half-truths and encouraging the continuity of corruption and conspiracies. We have a right to know the truth. Deliver Us from Evil is my contribution to more open discourse. When Oliver O'Grady agreed to go on the record with his story, I was compelled to undertake this documentary. Never before had a Catholic priest spoken aloud about his abuse, revealed a history of confessions of his abuse, shared psychological evaluations or offered police reports testament to his own abusive actions. The Church, through its orders for O'Grady's relocation from city to city whenever allegations of wrongdoings occurred, proved it was willing to break the law to protect its secret. The institution's actions unfortunately revealed how the largest "corporation" in the world chose to sacrifice the innocence of children to protect its good image. But one step into the Jyono's living room would forever convince me that this damage will never go away. The anguish, the pain, seemed indescribable at first; not only had the family lent all their money, their heart and faith to the Church, they also felt they had sacrificed their daughter and the loss could never be recovered. The juxtaposition of their reality and O'Grady's reality was irreconcilable, yet he thought a reconciliation with his victims was possible through the making of the film. His inability to follow his words with action, however, proved he was still a product of the Church and his own institutionalized abuse. When I discovered that early popes and bishops were married, and that celibacy was instituted as a result of loss of property by the church instead of theological belief, it seemed like generations of children had been put at risk for the sake of a simple financial transaction. The whole premise of the Catholic Church seemed to be based on a false premise. I knew I had to tell this story. Part of our responsibility as journalists and documentarians is to explore and expose issues that are detrimental to society. The Church has, over and over again, flouted civil laws and proceeded with the practice of secrets and crypts. A documentary hopes to provide middle ground amongst extremes, and the absence of any apologetic behavior between the Church and its victims serves to enforce the great divide. We can only hope, as documentary filmmakers, that our work can promote change and provide context to the limited text found so often in sensationalist media. -MPM Deliver Us from Evil premiered at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival. In addition to its recognition at a half dozen film festivals around the globe, the film and its director have received honors handed out by the New York Film Critics Circle, the Boston Film Critics and the International Foreign Press's Satellite Award. The film is also nominated for the major documentary prizes of the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America, and has been nominated for Best Feature Documentary in this year's Academy Awards. | 
