Documentary on Catholic abuse

I came across this article from a couple weeks ago. There are a lot of parallels to TF. In this interview the filmmaker says: "I think it's [the official response by church leaders] kind of an un-Christian response.When somebody's hurting, you never stop trying to ease their pain, especially if your church has had a hand in it." Both the Catholic church and TF have done just the opposite for their victims, heaping insult on injury by their denials, protecting perpetrators and blaming victims.

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'Faith' filmmakers say church rebuffed them

By CLAUDIA ROWE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Thursday, August 18, 2005

In 2002, when news stories broke detailing a decades-long coverup of child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church, Kirby Dick, a documentary filmmaker in Los Angeles, felt many things, among them exasperation.

News coverage concentrated on accountability and blame and, eventually, lawsuits. But rarely did he read anything that exposed the emotional reality of victims. "Twist of Faith," Dick hopes, will redress that.

In an interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Dick and producer Eddie Schmidt discussed their search for an appropriate subject to tell this story and described church reaction in its aftermath.

P-I: There are innumerable instances of child abuse. Why make a movie about this particular scandal?

Dick: Sexual abuse, unfortunately, happens very, very frequently in this country, but I think it's actually hard for people to contemplate this, to even think about it. And when you add religion it adds a level of complexity and trauma for the survivor that I was very interested in delving into.

How has the church reacted to your movie?

Dick: When we were making the film, we'd arranged for an interview with the bishop in Toledo. He had no direct relationship to the abuse we were talking about so we thought it would be OK. We flew out to Ohio, set up our cameras for an hour and a half outside his office, and five minutes before we were going to start shooting he said, "I've changed my mind. I'm not going to do it." That was astounding to us. It kind of gave me a sense of what Tony (the film's protagonist) had gone through, that this person you think of as a paragon of virtue suddenly breaks a promise and is lying to you.

Though "Twist" is pretty specific in its locale, Toledo, Ohio, the experience of victims there is amazingly consistent with that of victims here in Seattle. What kind of reaction did you get when the film screened in Toledo?

Schmidt: Well it hasn't yet -- not really. We had a private showing at the one independent screen in town, but as far as mainstream movie houses, we were told it would never happen because the material was too controversial. Then they said they'd have to create a policy for controversial films. Then they said it was a business decision. Basically, the film is being censored in Toledo.

How did you choose your main subject, Tony Comes? And did he receive any pay for appearing in the film?

Schmidt: No. In fact, Tony asked about that the first time we met. Kirby explained that in a documentary we don't pay people, and he said, "Good, because I don't want anyone to think I did this for the money."

Dick: So many of these people, they don't want to sue the church and they're forced into that position because over and over and over the church doesn't respond. What people tend to forget when they hear these stories is this was against the law -- people should be in jail! So what other recourse do they have, because by the time you're able to process it and come forward, the law is not on your side. What else can they do? The idea that money's behind this is so off. These people are just trying to find some kind of justice.

There are many within the church who say abuse victims have been hurt so badly it seems that nothing will heal them. What do you think about that?

Dick: I think it's kind of an un-Christian response. When somebody's hurting, you never stop trying to ease their pain, especially if your church has had a hand in it.

The thing that's most important to these people is an acknowledgement that it happened, in an open and honest way, and that there's an apology for that. I know that goes a long way toward easing their pain. And those are two things that are not really financial at all.