From Mea Culpa to Nostra Culpa: A Reparative Apology from the Catholic Church?

Abstract

In 2013, filmmaker Alex Gibney released Mea Maxima Culpa, a film documenting the case of sexual abuse of deaf children in a Catholic residential school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and, perhaps more importantly, the alleged involvement of members of the Church hierarchy right up to the Vatican in the prolonged protection of priests who committed abuse. When, just a few days after the release of the film, Pope Benedict XVI made the unprecedented move of resigning, Gibney suggested that the resignation was ‘inextricably linked to the sexual abuse crisis’.1 His conjecture may or may not have been true, but the tide of evidence and disquiet about the history of sexual abuse in the Church is without doubt precipitating a demand for a far more comprehensive response than has been seen.