Protest the Pope film season launched – buy tickets now
As part of the Protest the Pope campaign, the National Secular Society is presenting a short season of films which explore issues that the Catholic Church and the Government would prefer were kept under wraps during the papal visit. The authorities in this country refuse to ask difficult questions of the pope – so we will do it for them. Each of these powerful films illustrates clearly why the Pope should be made to answer for the many sins of his Church. The showings will be at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL.
Monday 13 September, 7.30pm
SINNERS
A look at life inside one of the notorious Magdalene Asylums where women — who the Catholic Church adjudged to have stepped out of line in some way — were incarcerated and abused. A chilling portrayal of what happens when the state gives unfettered power to a religious institution which then uses it to literally batter the population into submission. Survivors of the Magdalene laundries are still fighting for the Vatican to recognise the enormous suffering inflicted on them by the Church.
Tuesday 14 September, 7.30pm
DELIVER US FROM EVIL
A truly shocking, Oscar-nominated documentary by Amy Berg. This is the story of Father Oliver O'Grady, a paedophile priest who was moved by the Catholic Church from parish to parish in the US, permitting him to continue his campaign of rape and exploitation in new settings. The film exposes the corruption inside the Catholic Church that allowed O’Grady to repeatedly gain the trust of congregations and then betray them by abusing their children. It also illustrates the heartless indifference that the Vatican showed to the victims of this man who was their representative and used their authority to conduct his grotesque abuses.
Wednesday 15 September, 7.30pm
UNREPENTANT
This multi-award winning documentary at last tells the truth about the almost unbelievable abuse and murder that took place in the Church-run Indian Residential Schools in Canada. It also explores Rev Kevin Annett’s efforts to document and make public these crimes – and the efforts of the church to stop him.
First-hand testimonies from residential school survivors are interwoven with Annett’s own story of how he faced firing, “de-frocking”, and the loss of his family, reputation and livelihood as a result of his efforts to help survivors and bring out the truth of the residential schools.
This saga goes on, as Annett continues his struggle to hold the government and churches of Canada to account for crimes against humanity.
Unrepentant took nineteen months to film, primarily in British Columbia and Alberta, and is based on Kevin Annett’s book Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust. The entire film was a self-funded, grassroots effort, which is reflected in its earthy and human quality. We are delighted that Kevin Annett will be present at the screening to introduce the film and answer questions.
Thursday 16 September 7.30pm
THE CRIME OF FATHER AMARO
Set in Mexico in 2002, this film follows the experiences of a young, idealistic, priest who is sent to a small parish to assist the ageing Father Benito. It soon becomes apparent that the Church is a hotbed of corruption and hypocrisy and the young Father Amaro (played by Gael Garcia Bernal) is sorely tested and slowly drawn in.
The Catholic Church in Mexico declared that seeing this film was a mortal sin, but despite (or was it because of?) this, it became the country’s most popular film ever. Directed by Carlos Carrera.
The film will be preceded by a talk by David Ranan, author of Double Cross: Code of the Catholic Church – a book that exposes the corruption that has been at the heart of the Church since its very foundation.
Tickets for each film are £3. Seats are limited, so advance booking is advised. Buy tickets here or by post from NSS Film Festival, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL.
This article was found at:
http://www.secularism.org.uk/protest-the-pope-film-season-lau.html
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Ex-priest jailed for three years over child pornography
ReplyDeleteThe Irish Times January 31, 2012
A FORMER priest and convicted child abuser has been jailed for three years for possession of large amounts of child pornography.
Oliver O’Grady (66) had thousands of explicit images of children stored on computers and USB drives, some depicting victims as young as two. Gardaí also found more than six hours of child pornography videos and more than 500 pages of online discussions on the subject of child pornography.
O’Grady, Charlemont House, Dublin, was sentenced to 14 years in California for abusing children while a priest. He was deported to Ireland in 2001 after serving seven years of his sentence.
The images were discovered after O’Grady left his laptop on an Aer Lingus flight. A staff member examined the computer and alerted gardaí after coming across the files.
O’Grady pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to three counts of possessing child pornography at Dublin airport on February 15th, 2010, and at Citi Hostel, Charlemont Street, and Elephant storage unit, Tallaght, on December 10th, 2010.
Det Garda Gerard Keane of the paedophile investigations unit told Kerida Naidoo, prosecuting, that he found nearly 280,000 images on O’Grady’s laptops and hard drives, the majority showing children in sexual poses. He also found more than 1,000 child pornography video files which totalled more than six hours in length.
An audio file was also discovered. It started off with O’Grady discussing religious matters but after several minutes he began discussing the sexual abuse of a male child before returning to the topic of religion.
Det Garda Keane also found more than 500 pages of chat logs which showed O’Grady’s “serious fixation” on children. Most of the data had already been deleted by O’Grady but Garda computer experts were able to recover it.
On February 15th, 2010, O’Grady was returning to Dublin from Amsterdam on an Aer Lingus flight. He left his laptop on the aircraft and it was put in the lost property department by airline staff.
Aer Lingus rules state that if lost property is not claimed within three months, the staff member who found it is allowed to keep it. When a staff member claimed possession of the computer and examined its contents, they found the illegal files and alerted gardaí.
Gardaí went to the hostel where O’Grady was staying and he showed them to a locker containing several USB devices and an external hard drive. He also told them about more computer equipment in a storage facility in Tallaght. All the devices contained illegal files.
In interview, O’Grady admitted the equipment was his but answered “no comment” to all other questions.
Phillipp Rahn SC, defending, said O’Grady was “a socially isolated man”.
He was born in Limerick and emigrated to California after joining the priesthood. In 1993 he was sentenced to 14 years for four counts of lewd acts against children and was deported to Ireland on his release.
After leaving the priesthood, he moved to Amsterdam for several years before returning to Ireland on the flight where he left his laptop behind. While here, he had to move residence several times because of his notoriety.
“If people didn’t download child pornography,” Judge Martin Nolan said, “there is a good chance that those children would not be abused in the first place.”
He said O’Grady had a serious problem and prison in America had not rehabilitated him.
He took into account his early guilty plea and limited co-operation with gardaí before jailing him for three years.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0131/1224311002517.html