Critic Reviews

• Cath Clarke, Time Out

  The case has been widely reported but this is still an important film, laying out who knew what, and when. It's chilling: the conspiracy of silence goes all the way to the Vatican.

• Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger

  It feels a bit like a monster movie. It is, too.

• Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post

  In the end, decades of such crimes going undetected and undeterred under the aegis of one employer - any employer - speaks for itself. And the extraordinary perseverance and courage of the men from St. John's speaks louder still.

• Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

  Partly an inspiring saga of growing "deaf power" and human resilience, and partly a murky and fragmentary drama about an immense, closed-minded bureaucracy with paranoid and conspiratorial tendencies that finds itself unable to adjust to the modern world.

• A.O. Scott, New York Times

  There is something to be said for a clear and unblinking recitation of facts, and thankfully Mr. Gibney does a lot of that.

• Mark Jenkins, NPR

  Gibney's most powerful film since the Oscar-winning 2007 Taxi to the Dark Side.

• Simon Weaving, Screenwize

  a carefully constructed observation of the facts and a withering condemnation of the behaviour of the Catholic Church.

• CJ Johnson, ABC Radio (Australia)

  Before you say you can't take another feature length documentary about sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests, know that Alex Gibney's examination of the subject is both fresh and revelatory.

• Siobhan Synnot, Scotsman

  Gibney tracks a disgraceful cover-up within the Catholic church.

• Ed Gibbs, The Sunday Age

  A heartbreaking, brilliantly executed exposé, in which four deaf victims bring the church to account. Their testimonies are chilling.

• Simon Miraudo, Quickflix

  Alex Gibney isn't casting the first stone at the Vatican with his documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God. But, God willing, it will be the most effective in shattering their narrative of blissful ignorance.

• Brent Simon, Shockya.com

  Tragedy that sticks to your bones -- a gut-punch look at the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal as filtered through the experiential prism of a group of victims from a single Midwestern school for the deaf.

• Andrew L. Urban, Urban Cinefile

  With meticulous care and intricate detail, Silence In The House of God deconstructs the nature of the Catholic Church's systematic cover ups of pedophilia among their clergy, stretching back well into the past century

• Louise Keller, Urban Cinefile

  It is ironic that the raised voices of a small group of deaf boys from Milwaukee, Wisconsin are loud enough to threaten the code of silence over child molestation accusations in the Catholic Church

• Blake Howard, 2UE That Movie Show

  It's not one documentary that you'd care to endure on repeat viewings but it's a necessary investigation into the paedophilic petri dish that the Catholic Church allowed itself to become.

• Tara Brady, Irish Times

  It's impossible to leave the cinema without hoping that the Papal resignation and the awful events explored here are not unrelated.

• Philip French, Observer [UK]

  It's a lucid film everyone should see and the Vatican should answer for.

• Rich Cline, Contactmusic.com

  There's a reason this expertly shot and edited documentary is skimming under the radar: no one wants you to see it. The hugely skilled Gibney is taking on the world's biggest corporation, the Vatican.

• David Parkinson, Radio Times

  [A] harrowing exposé of child abuse within the Roman Catholic Church, which reveals the extent the Vatican has been actively involved in covering up crimes committed by priests.

• Xan Brooks, Guardian [UK]

  A kind of unintentional leaving gift for the outgoing Pope Benedict, though it is not one he is likely to relish.

Read all 25 critic reviews