Paula Zahn Now--tonight on CNN--Pedophile priests

This thread is in relation to the new movie coming out "DELIVER US FROM EVIL".

Paula Zahn [ CNN ] has the transcript of this program she did months ago:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/27/lol.02.html

Scrolling down to this portion:

Well, he was an abusive priest who preyed on children in California for two decades. Now his story, as told in his own words, is the subject of a documentary debuting at this week's Los Angeles Film Festival. The film is a disturbing view of abuse through the eyes of the abuser, former priest Oliver O'Grady.

Investigative correspondent Drew Griffin joins us now.

Of course, I have lots of questions, but maybe we should talk about the piece first and what you've worked on for tonight.

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: You know, to so many of the children in California, his victims, he was known as Father Ollie (ph). Well, now former Father Oliver O'Grady in this very disturbing film, as Kyra said, is trying to apologize to all his victims, though he admits he can't even remember them all.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: (voice-over): The film is not just a horrific story, but also the confession of former Priest Oliver O'Grady.

OLIVER O'GRADY, FMR. PRIEST: I want to promise myself that this is going to be the most honest confession of my life. And in doing that, I need to make the long journey backwards, to understand what I did, to acknowledge that, in some way to make reparation for.

GRIFFIN: In "Deliver Us From Evil," filmmaker and former CNN freelance producer Amy Burke travels to Ireland and is granted unlimited access to this convicted child molester, who for nearly two decades was shuttled from parish to parish in northern California's Catholic Church. And during those decades, O'Grady claims in this film the church knew about the abuse and did little to stop it.

O'GRADY: Basically what I want to say it should not have happened. Should not have happened.

GRIFFIN: The story tracks the lives, then and now...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need to acknowledge to you face-to-face that I have molested you sexually.

GRIFFIN: ... of O'Grady's child victims, their formerly trusted parents and the church hierarchy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was so excited to meet somebody from home.

GRIFFIN: Maria and Bob Jyono welcomed Father O'Grady in their home when the priest was new to California. Their daughter, Ann, was only five.

O'GRADY: Little Ann was one of the first people I met there.

GRIFFIN: Throughout the film, O'Grady deflects blame from himself, points blame at others for allowing him to abuse. He blames the church for not stopping him. He even blames the parents, like the Jyonos, for allowing him so close to their daughter.

O'GRADY: I was often invited to sleep over there, and that's when some of the problems began, in Ann's situation.

GRIFFIN: The Jyonos would learn only years later, after their beloved priest was arrested, that their daughter Ann may have been his first victim.

BOB JYONO, DAUGHTER ABUSED BY PRIEST: He had the Bible in his hand and said morning prayers, said good morning all.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And would be in there at nighttime molesting Ann. JYONO: During the night, he's molesting my daughter, raping her, not molesting her, raping her! At five years old! God sakes! How can that happen? But that's what he did.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GRIFFIN: Oliver O'Grady was eventually convicted in 1993. He served seven years in a California prison, was then deported back to Ireland. Well, most disturbing of all, he now lives a free man, able to wander the streets of Dublin, Ireland.

PHILLIPS: So, are authorities there tracking him?

GRIFFIN: Apparently, he got in prior to Ireland enacting any kind of sexual registration for offenders or anything like that. So, authorities really do not have any official capacity to track him at this time.

PHILLIPS: Well, you would -- do they realize what he has done, what he was convicted of? Are they aware?

GRIFFIN: There have been some communications between the filmmaker and authorities, but they are really learning for the first time from this documentary the past of Oliver O'Grady.

PHILLIPS: So no one really knows if he has reoffended in Ireland?

GRIFFIN: Right. And tonight, in some very disturbing scenes we're going to show on "PAULA ZAHN NOW," you will see this person, this Oliver O'Grady, actually peering over the fences of playgrounds and walking down the street with children next to him. He is completely free.

PHILLIPS: So, he was tracked with cameras. Tracked by undercover cameras?

GRIFFIN: No, no, he was perfectly happy...

PHILLIPS: He had no problem...

GRIFFIN: ... to have the filmmakers follow him around.

PHILLIPS: How -- do we even know how many kids that he molested?

GRIFFIN: He doesn't seem to know. But there are at least a dozen or more cases that have been either filed through civil lawsuits, or in the case of his guilty pleas, there were two boys. And the ages of these victims, whether they're girls or boys, they range anywhere from -- from toddlers, really, up until the teen, preteen.

PHILLIPS: All right. We'll look for more on "PAULA ZAHN NOW" tonight, 8:00 Eastern.

GRIFFIN: Eight o'clock. PHILLIPS: Thanks, Drew.

Well, an Internet guru shot in a parking garage, a multimillion- dollar fortune, and five in line to inherit it. But this mystery is hardly elementary, my dear. Prosecutors say you won't even believe the plot twist.

That's ahead on LIVE FROM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Here are the directors reccent comments from a yahoo page:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20061002/cm_huffpost/030760

Amy Berg

Mon Oct 2, 3:03 PM ET

I am the director and producer of the film Deliver Us From Evil, a documentary about a pedophile priest who was protected from justice for over 25 years by the Catholic Church under the direct eye of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony. I have spent the past four years investigating this story as a journalist (at KCBS News and CNN Investigations), and have written and produced numerous stories documenting church cover-up and blatant manipulation of parishioners and innocent Catholic families.

Recently the MPAA shared their decision with Lionsgate, the film's distributor, to disapprove the Deliver Us From Evil trailer for general audiences due to "overt comments about child molestation throughout." They didn't offer any specific feedback about an offending image or word (and indeed there were no graphic images or swear words included), but rather the very idea of child sexual abuse was cited, despite the MPAA having been provided a list of films to be targeted for trailer attachment that included only R rated films. The MPAA would have slapped the trailer with a 'red band' rating, a very rare label that in effect relegates the trailer to art house theaters, as most mainstream exhibitors won't play red band trailers even in front of R rated films for fear of backlash. Because of this, Lionsgate has no real choice but to release the film (and thus the trailer) unrated by the MPAA. It is important to me to tell the truth about this issue and sadly that just wasn't possible within the MPAA's parameters.

This film and its trailer deals frankly with an important and very real ongoing social ill- and one that is routinely discussed on primetime and network news at that. In fact, the red banded trailer opens with a Paula Zahn news segment which covers a portion of the very same story as does the film. That it would be disapproved for mainstream exhibition is especially infuriating given that I have repeatedly seen horror film trailers that depict women being tortured or mutilated in connection with sexual activity, murder, gunfire and other extremely disturbing adult content playing before PG13 movies.

But I fear there is more at play here than the longstanding hypocrisy exhibited by the MPAA and other cultural institutions when it comes to censoring sex vs. violence. Through this year's brilliant documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, made by my colleague Kirby Dick, I have discovered that two clergy members are present (and possibly involved) during the film rating process. I do not know whether there were clergy involved in the MPAA's decision to disapprove the trailer, but given the atmosphere in which these decisions are made, I can't help but fear that perhaps it was as much the idea of high ranking Church officials as fallible and possibly even criminal that the MPAA found unacceptable as it was the idea of sexual abuse.

Along these same lines, this week Cardinal Mahony presided over a "Red-Mass" in Los Angeles for thousands of members of the judicial system- invitees spanned all the way up to members of the US Supreme Court, the District Attorney and City Attorney. Police Department heads were also invited to a special law enforcement mass the previous week. These officials, who often have private dinners with Mahony and accept communion from him personally, are likely to see clergy cases and survivors in their courtrooms (there are over 550 civil sexual abuse cases that have been brought against the Los Angeles Archdiocese since the scandal erupted) need to be able to evaluate both sides of the issue impartially. Thus, 600 of the same public officials were asked to attend a screening of my film held immediately prior to the Mass and sponsored by SNAP, the Survivors Network Of Those Abused By Priests, in a bid for them to simply give equal time to the victims of clergy abuse as they were giving to the Archdiocese and Roger Mahony. None attended.

What must the 100,000 survivors of clergy abuse (and the vast number of survivors who have yet to come forward) feel like seeing the government officials who are supposed to protect, represent and serve them behave in this way, and seeing a trailer for a film that honestly depicts their ordeal and the very fact of their abuse be treated by the MPAA as unacceptable for mainstream Americans to view and understand?

_____

Here is MY PLAN OF ACTION:

Hit the theatres that will be showing this movie with fliers on WTBTS CHILD ABUSE EPIDEMIC...along with the JESUS CANO CASE, including his photo and Bethel I.D. card. I am going to stand there before the movie and after, talking about jw child abuse that is just as corrupt as the FOLEY case and the RCC cases.

What a great opportunity to inform the public that it isn't just the biggest church or politicians who are COMMITING these acts. Take a closer look at those "kingdom halls" in YOUR neighborhoods.

Man, I can't wait!

sKally

Paula Zahn Now--tonight on CNN--Pedophile priests

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