Virginia Catholic Church Sexual Abuse Lawyer - Virginia Catholic Church Sexual Abuse Settlements VA
If you were sexually abused as a child by a priest, deacon or any other member of the Catholic Church, you are not alone. We are here to help you. Please fill out our confidential online contact form or call Toll Free 1-866-777-2557 and a Virginia Sexual Abuse Lawyer will get back to you within 24 hours to discuss your possible case. Help is available nationwide. There is no cost to investigate and there are no legal fees unless you receive financial compensation. Making the call is sometimes the hardest step, but it is often a necessary step on the road to healing. Catholic Church Sexual Abuse Lawyer Virginia
Reasons to call
Please call Toll Free 1-866-777-2557 or fill out our confidential contact form and a lawyer will get back to you within 24 hours to discuss your case. Virginia Catholic Church Sexual Abuse Lawyer
Catholic Church Sexual Abuse Lawyer Virginia
4 films about church abuse Deliver Us from Evil (film) Our Fathers (TV film) Sex Crimes and the Vatican (film) Spotlight (film)
The legal system can investigate long-concealed crimes and shed light on their enablers. But it has a big drawback: the proceedings are not public and cannot be seen by the world, only read about in news reports. Film can remedy this problem, compellingly presenting stories of crime, punishment, innocence and guilt.
Virginia Catholic Church Sexual Abuse Lawyer
This is the case with four recent films that have focused on the Catholic child sex abuse scandals. In 2006, director Amy Berg released the documentary Deliver Us from Evil. The film focuses on Oliver O’Grady, a native of Ireland who in the 1970s reportedly molested young boys and girls in Central California. O’Grady was eventually convicted, sent to prison and deported. The film shows interviews with O’Grady, who seems disturbingly cheerful and downplays the seriousness of his crimes rather than denying them.
In interviews, it also shows the pain of victims’ families, who are horrified at the violation of trust by someone they welcomed into their families. And it shows depositions by officials who were complicit in protecting O’Grady. The film is both disturbing and unflinching in its honesty.
Catholic Church Sexual Abuse Lawyer Virginia
By contrast, Our Fathers, from 2005, is a fictionalized drama starring Ted Danson relating the events following the Boston Globe’s decision to run a serious of investigative reports on church sexual abuse. It is based on the exhaustively reported book Our Fathers by David France, and features Danson as a courageous lawyer who goes after corrupt church hierarchy, including Christopher Plummer as Cardinal Bernard Law (who eventually resigned following damning evidence that he concealed evidence of abuse). The film shows the heroes as well as the villains of the saga.
Another hero in the sordid Catholic child abuse scandal is Colm O’Gorman, an Irish filmmaker who was raped by a priest when he was a 15-year-old. His Sex Crimes and the Vatican details the exposure of a secret church document, Crimen Sollicitationis, that directed bishops on what to do when someone accused a priest of child abuse or other sex crimes. The document directed other clergy to keep the charges secret or face excommunication. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later the pope, reissued the document in 2001, and its demand of secrecy was likely responsible for untold thousands of incidents of child rape and molestation.
Virginia Catholic Church Sexual Abuse Lawyer
The film shows damning footage of church officials who knew about child abuse but kept it hidden. And as the title suggests, it focuses on the high-level nature of this conspiracy, which went all the way to the Vatican.
Colm O’Gorman had previously made the BAFTA award-winning BBC special Suing the Pope. Sex Crimes and the Vatican is available free online. In a series of events as horrifying as this one, one constant is the integrity shown by people with a drive to reveal the truth and obtain justice for victims. 2015’s drama Spotlight focuses on the Boston Globe journalists who broke open the sex abuse scandal in 2002. Featuring Mark Ruffalo, Stanley Tucci and others, it shows how a team of journalists uncovered a stranger-than-fiction conspiracy to hush up priest sexual abuse. While the team thought they were following the story of one problem priest, they stumbled on the fact that there were many others.
The journalist’s work resulted in many more victims coming forward, and the Oscar-winning film shows the gritty reality of what it took to expose the truth.
Catholic Church Sexual Abuse Lawyer Virginia
Were You Abused?
Call Today: 1-866-777-2557
Copyright ©2020 Vanderhyde Law. All Rights Reserved. Please read our disclaimer and terms of use. The use of this website or contact forms does not create an attorney client relationship. Under our legal system, all parties mentioned in this website are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Attorney Advertising