Attn: Contains spoilers
First, although O'Grady did have the courage to participate in the making of this film, and although he commented several times that the molestation events should never have occurred, still, he came across as a man not fully comprehending the great harm that he had done to the children he molested, many of whom are now grown adults, nor to their families. His attitude conveyed in the film was, if not insouciant, at least shallow: Well, I did a bad thing and I'm sorry, so I'll write a letter to my victims apologizing and then we can all get on with our lives. Although not phony, it certainly didn't strike me that he felt any deep remorse for what he had done.
Several other comments are these: 1) We don't learn until the last third of the movie that O'Grady himself was a victim of abuse, chiefly by his older brother (Would it have been pertinent if he had participated in the film?) but also by a priest whose name O'Grady had either forgotten or repressed. This is not surprising in itself since most pedophiles have a history of abuse, but O'Grady didn't seem to draw the connection of these experiences with his own problem. Amazing! 2) It is clear that several members of the higher clergy of the Roman Catholic Church were cognizant of O'Grady's criminal activities. Rather than turn him over to the police and drum him out of the Church, they merely shuffled him around from parish to parish. The topping on the cake, so to speak, was when Mahony appointed O'Grady as the sole priest in charge of a parish (San Andreas in Calaveras County, CA). Ultimately, the Roman Catholic Church failed utterly to address the problem, and it is clear by the activities of Father Tom Doyle that it still has failed to come to grips with the issue. The Church's behavior exhibits a perfect example of the ostrich effect: Stick your head in the sand and maybe the whole problem will blow away with the wind. 3) The film did bring out the idea of the possibility of the Roman Catholic clergy failing to distinguish among different levels of sexual activity that a priest might have, lumping them all together under "illicit sex". This suggests that they would equate sex with an adult female as equivalent to sex with a minor, when clearly what must be distinguished is the maturity and complicity of the person with whom the priest engages in a sexual act (assuming that he indeed do so). 4) It also strongly suggests that seminarians, particularly those entering the Roman Catholic priesthood, undergo some sort of psychological evaluation by a competent person to determine if they are fit material for the priesthood. 5) The other issue that rose in my mind watching the movie was whether pedophilia is as widespread among clerics of other Christian sects and non-Christian clerics. Even if a man be allowed to marry, as is the case with most Protestant pastors, Eastern Orthodox priests, and Jewish rabbis, a pedophile is attracted to young children, and the fact that he's married or not probably doesn't bear on his predilection from a psychological standpoint. 6) Given that the film focused on a Roman Catholic priest (at the time he committed the molestations) and who is still a practicing Roman Catholic, no one asked O'Grady the obvious questions that had been going through my mind: Mr. O'Grady, when you were contemplating molesting a child, were you not aware that by so doing you were committing a mortal sin? And by carrying through your thought to an overt act, were you not aware that you were committing an even more heinous mortal sin? Surprisingly, no one asked O'Grady these questions.
First, although O'Grady did have the courage to participate in the making of this film, and although he commented several times that the molestation events should never have occurred, still, he came across as a man not fully comprehending the great harm that he had done to the children he molested, many of whom are now grown adults, nor to their families. His attitude conveyed in the film was, if not insouciant, at least shallow: Well, I did a bad thing and I'm sorry, so I'll write a letter to my victims apologizing and then we can all get on with our lives. Although not phony, it certainly didn't strike me that he felt any deep remorse for what he had done.
Several other comments are these: 1) We don't learn until the last third of the movie that O'Grady himself was a victim of abuse, chiefly by his older brother (Would it have been pertinent if he had participated in the film?) but also by a priest whose name O'Grady had either forgotten or repressed. This is not surprising in itself since most pedophiles have a history of abuse, but O'Grady didn't seem to draw the connection of these experiences with his own problem. Amazing! 2) It is clear that several members of the higher clergy of the Roman Catholic Church were cognizant of O'Grady's criminal activities. Rather than turn him over to the police and drum him out of the Church, they merely shuffled him around from parish to parish. The topping on the cake, so to speak, was when Mahony appointed O'Grady as the sole priest in charge of a parish (San Andreas in Calaveras County, CA). Ultimately, the Roman Catholic Church failed utterly to address the problem, and it is clear by the activities of Father Tom Doyle that it still has failed to come to grips with the issue. The Church's behavior exhibits a perfect example of the ostrich effect: Stick your head in the sand and maybe the whole problem will blow away with the wind. 3) The film did bring out the idea of the possibility of the Roman Catholic clergy failing to distinguish among different levels of sexual activity that a priest might have, lumping them all together under "illicit sex". This suggests that they would equate sex with an adult female as equivalent to sex with a minor, when clearly what must be distinguished is the maturity and complicity of the person with whom the priest engages in a sexual act (assuming that he indeed do so). 4) It also strongly suggests that seminarians, particularly those entering the Roman Catholic priesthood, undergo some sort of psychological evaluation by a competent person to determine if they are fit material for the priesthood. 5) The other issue that rose in my mind watching the movie was whether pedophilia is as widespread among clerics of other Christian sects and non-Christian clerics. Even if a man be allowed to marry, as is the case with most Protestant pastors, Eastern Orthodox priests, and Jewish rabbis, a pedophile is attracted to young children, and the fact that he's married or not probably doesn't bear on his predilection from a psychological standpoint. 6) Given that the film focused on a Roman Catholic priest (at the time he committed the molestations) and who is still a practicing Roman Catholic, no one asked O'Grady the obvious questions that had been going through my mind: Mr. O'Grady, when you were contemplating molesting a child, were you not aware that by so doing you were committing a mortal sin? And by carrying through your thought to an overt act, were you not aware that you were committing an even more heinous mortal sin? Surprisingly, no one asked O'Grady these questions.