Priest admits to sexual abuse in disturbing new documentary

LOS ANGELES — The defrocked priest is by turns remorseful and flippant as he recounts in graphic detail a lifetime of sexually abusing children. Then, near the end of "the most honest confession of my life," he turns to the movie camera to wink and smile at his victims.

Oliver O'Grady's confession is the backbone of a deeply disturbing documentary about the Roman Catholic clergy abuse crisis in one rural northern California diocese — a tale all the more unsettling because, for the first time, it is told in the words of an abusive priest himself.

O'Grady, 61, was deported to his native Ireland in 2001 after serving seven years in state prison for molesting two brothers. He has admitted abusing at least 25 children and cost the Diocese of Stockton millions of dollars to settle civil sexual-abuse suits.

In "Deliver Us From Evil," first-time filmmaker Amy Berg uses O'Grady's lengthy narrative to question how much diocese leaders knew about those crimes and the steps they took to stop the charming young priest who was nicknamed Father Ollie.

The unrated film, which won best documentary at the Los Angeles Film Festival, opens in Los Angeles and New York on Oct. 13, with a broader release in at least 10 more markets two weeks later. It has been picked up by Lions Gate Entertainment.

The film focuses on O'Grady's relationship with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, who was his bishop in Stockton in the early 1980s when O'Grady confessed to at least one instance of molestation. Mahony is now struggling to settle hundreds of sexual abuse cases against the Los Angeles Archdiocese, which may also be under investigation by a criminal grand jury (authorities won't say if proceedings are taking place).

Berg opens the film with O'Grady praying, surrounded by candles. He is pensive and quiet as he reflects on his 22-year career in the Diocese of Stockton and the trail of pain he left behind.

"I am here because I recognize in my life there has been a major imbalance mainly caused by what I have done in a criminal way," O'Grady says. "Basically what I want to say to them is, you know, it should not have happened. It should not have happened."

The film then moves through a series of gut-wrenching interviews with several of O'Grady's alleged victims and their parents that hint at the depth of betrayal they feel. O'Grady has previously said in court depositions that he began abusing others when he was 12 and at one point had sex with two of his victims' mothers to gain access to their children.