Anybody seen this film? I have been meaning to, but haven't yet. My friend who grew up going to Jesuit schools in St Louis was talking about it last weekend and said it is really powerful. I am curious to see what Kansas City parish churches appear in the film.
https://deadline.com/2021/11/procession ... 234880510/
https://www.bishop-accountability.org/2 ... h-healing/
procession
procession
I saw the worst minds of my generation empowered by madness, bloated farcical naked,
dragging themselves through the whitewashed streets at dawn looking for a grievance fix.
dragging themselves through the whitewashed streets at dawn looking for a grievance fix.
Re: procession
I wasn't aware of this. Went to Catholic school through high school. I never saw or experienced anything, to my knowledge none of my friends did either. Curious to see if the documentary names perps and schools.
Defense. Rebounds.
Re: procession
I have an irrational anger towards the Church for their role in the abuse of kids over time so I have never been able to watch any films or documentaries on the topic. And no, I never attended church or was abused by any church employees. I just cannot process the level of anger it generates when I think about it. The entire organization has worked and continues to work as an organized worldwide child pedophilia ring and churchgoers in this country mostly pretend like it never happened, let alone acknowledge that it is still happening today. I consider it to be the epitome of pure evil on this earth.
Re: procession
Yeah, it’s crazy how the sheep themselves are the quickest to normalize the abuse.
You suggest to a young catholic family, “maybe think twice before leaving your kids in the same room alone with a priest,” and the parents act like you’re the asshole for offering a word of caution, rather than the abusive priests and system that perpetuated the risk in the first place.
I grew up in KC dioceses as well (St. Paul’s in south Olathe…Latina central, trust me illy!)
One Sunday morning as mass was wrapping up, the priest gets up there and announces, “because of my gambling problem I must resign effective immediately” and walked off crying.
Apparently the dude had been taking cash outta the collection baskets and gambling it away down at the river boats for years. Like tens of thousands stolen.
I dunno if he ever endured any consequences. Years later my parents went to some Catholic wedding in western ks and he was the priest there. Acted like he didn’t recognize them. He was always kind of an aloof dude.
But other than that, I was never aware of any abuse or other criminal activity within the church growing up. Not physical abuse, that warrants prosecution, at leastz
I was around spiritual and psychological and emotional abuse plenty, but that’s more so just how church works.
You suggest to a young catholic family, “maybe think twice before leaving your kids in the same room alone with a priest,” and the parents act like you’re the asshole for offering a word of caution, rather than the abusive priests and system that perpetuated the risk in the first place.
I grew up in KC dioceses as well (St. Paul’s in south Olathe…Latina central, trust me illy!)
One Sunday morning as mass was wrapping up, the priest gets up there and announces, “because of my gambling problem I must resign effective immediately” and walked off crying.
Apparently the dude had been taking cash outta the collection baskets and gambling it away down at the river boats for years. Like tens of thousands stolen.
I dunno if he ever endured any consequences. Years later my parents went to some Catholic wedding in western ks and he was the priest there. Acted like he didn’t recognize them. He was always kind of an aloof dude.
But other than that, I was never aware of any abuse or other criminal activity within the church growing up. Not physical abuse, that warrants prosecution, at leastz
I was around spiritual and psychological and emotional abuse plenty, but that’s more so just how church works.
Re: procession
My mom still clings to her Catholicism. She is 86 and her dementia is getting bad so I no longer discuss anything with her that might upset her, like our shared religious background. She used to tell me that the only way to save the Catholic church was to keep people in it who would change it. I told her I thought it should be burnt to the ground, it has been as much an organized crime syndicate as an organized religion over the years. I wouldn't consider any anger towards Catholicism irrational, there are plenty of facts to support anger. And to those who cling to positive feelings towards the Church, I harbor no ill will. Just don't try to tell me that my experiences or those of others are lies.
I had a First Friday opening of some of my artwork about the time this film was coming out. The pieces are large images and there is lots of text embedded in them. The premise of the show was, betrayal as an artifact of life. Not everyone reads the text but it is interesting to watch the faces and see reactions of those who do. I like to stand off to the side at openings and observe. One my wife's interns brought her grandmother who is a devout Catholic to the show. Grandma was really excited as she went through reading everything, she liked the Bible verses and the old hymns; and then she found something that turned her face sour. It was text from a newspaper article from the town where I spent 15 years of my childhood. Her granddaughter came over to me and said she was really liking all of this until she figured out what it was all about. She wanted the Catholic nostalgia without any negative reality. The granddaughter seemed pretty pleased that grandma had to face an ugly reality. I have no idea of what their backstory is, but a conversation ensued between the two of them about things they may have never talked about before.
Later the same night a guy about my age came up to me very excited. He was reading all of the text and told me he immediately understood, as he was reading between the lines. He was connecting the dots between text and imagery. He was involved in the making of the documentary, "Procession" and told me about the film and the people involved. He was working for the Diocese of Kansas City/St Joseph in the process, the fact that the Diocese agreed to help in their process was shocking to me. He wanted to know if it was OK with me if he brought the guys involved in the movie to the gallery. "Well, the point of putting them up publicly was for people to see them, so yeah, I would be happy for them to see them." I have no idea if that happened. I do like the idea that he saw value in having them see the work.
My wife asked me later, "do you ever worry about what people may think about you after they see this stuff? They don't know your story and you don't really flesh it out in detail in this work. They can read all kinds of stuff into it." A lot of my employees came to the show as well as clients, friends and strangers. Part of the answer her question was that making the work was cathartic, I never thought about anything but making something that embodied the concept/story during the creative process. I didn't want to direct the thoughts/take aways of the viewers in an obvious way. I wanted the work to have enough ambiguity for observers to bring themselves into the work and explore their own emotions about the subject. The point of making art is to have a conversation with the viewer. And to fully answer her question; "nope, I never worried about that and still don't."
It is the process of making peace with yourself and your past that intrigues me most about the movie. But I would be lying if I didn't admit that I was interested in hearing the names and places outed in the film.
I had a First Friday opening of some of my artwork about the time this film was coming out. The pieces are large images and there is lots of text embedded in them. The premise of the show was, betrayal as an artifact of life. Not everyone reads the text but it is interesting to watch the faces and see reactions of those who do. I like to stand off to the side at openings and observe. One my wife's interns brought her grandmother who is a devout Catholic to the show. Grandma was really excited as she went through reading everything, she liked the Bible verses and the old hymns; and then she found something that turned her face sour. It was text from a newspaper article from the town where I spent 15 years of my childhood. Her granddaughter came over to me and said she was really liking all of this until she figured out what it was all about. She wanted the Catholic nostalgia without any negative reality. The granddaughter seemed pretty pleased that grandma had to face an ugly reality. I have no idea of what their backstory is, but a conversation ensued between the two of them about things they may have never talked about before.
Later the same night a guy about my age came up to me very excited. He was reading all of the text and told me he immediately understood, as he was reading between the lines. He was connecting the dots between text and imagery. He was involved in the making of the documentary, "Procession" and told me about the film and the people involved. He was working for the Diocese of Kansas City/St Joseph in the process, the fact that the Diocese agreed to help in their process was shocking to me. He wanted to know if it was OK with me if he brought the guys involved in the movie to the gallery. "Well, the point of putting them up publicly was for people to see them, so yeah, I would be happy for them to see them." I have no idea if that happened. I do like the idea that he saw value in having them see the work.
My wife asked me later, "do you ever worry about what people may think about you after they see this stuff? They don't know your story and you don't really flesh it out in detail in this work. They can read all kinds of stuff into it." A lot of my employees came to the show as well as clients, friends and strangers. Part of the answer her question was that making the work was cathartic, I never thought about anything but making something that embodied the concept/story during the creative process. I didn't want to direct the thoughts/take aways of the viewers in an obvious way. I wanted the work to have enough ambiguity for observers to bring themselves into the work and explore their own emotions about the subject. The point of making art is to have a conversation with the viewer. And to fully answer her question; "nope, I never worried about that and still don't."
It is the process of making peace with yourself and your past that intrigues me most about the movie. But I would be lying if I didn't admit that I was interested in hearing the names and places outed in the film.
I saw the worst minds of my generation empowered by madness, bloated farcical naked,
dragging themselves through the whitewashed streets at dawn looking for a grievance fix.
dragging themselves through the whitewashed streets at dawn looking for a grievance fix.
Re: procession
We watched the documentary over the weekend. It is pretty powerful stuff. Much of it is centered around St Elizabeth's parish in KCMO. My family mostly was involved in other parishes around the metro, I have never been to St. Elizabeth's. There were multiple priests named in the movie but I only knew one of them. Fr. Thomas Reardon was at a few events/activities my parents were involved in, he was a visitor at family friends' homes. If you are curious you can read a list of priests from the KC/St Joseph Diocese at this link. There are other links on the site where you can find out more about individual priests.
https://www.bishop-accountability.org/d ... d_List.pdf
I had always assumed that these were "lone wolf" assailants that kept to themselves. At St. Elizabeth's it was a cluster and they had shared molestation houses and paraded children in front of one another as trophies. There are no graphic details or graphic visuals in the movie, the worst is mostly implied.
There is one powerful scene where they reenact a boy getting dropped off at one of the priest's group molestation house by his mom with a cake she had baked for the priest. The kid had been acting out in school. He had tried to tell his mom that he had been molested by the priest but she dismissed it. To try and help him "get right with God", mom baked a cake for the priest and then dropped the kid off at the priest's house and asked father to "counsel" the kid. You can guess what the "counseling" entailed. The scene hangs on the image of the priest smiling and waving at mom as she drives away while the kid stands next to him, eyes on the ground, holding a cake.
To the extent that parents are complicit in all of this isn't gone into in too much detail. But if you grew up in that culture you know how it worked. The priest always had a favorite altar boy or two. The priest being God's emissary, it was validation for the parents piety and goodness that their son was "chosen" out of all the altar boys and recognized for his purity and good Catholicism. You were a "made" family within the parish if your son was THE altar boy. It seems to be a pretty common thing that when asked years later; parents have no idea, never saw the signs, don't remember their kids saying anything. If anyone wanted to opt out of the altar boy track the question was, "what are the other parents going to think?"
Imagine being a broken adult offering your child up upon the altar of the pedophile to seek some sort of redemption from your chosen god. I would want to forget that shit too. These priests all had grooming and testing processes they had been perfecting over years and they knew what buttons to push and who to shove. They preyed upon the parents almost as much as the kids. They had to pick kids whose parents weren't likely to intervene or ask to many questions. I only remember two victims' parents appearing in the movie and they don't say much.
In the end it is a redemption story. The men in the story do seem to finally get some closure on their trauma after decades of hiding it and having it rule their lives in some ways. Minor kudos to St. Elizabeth's for allowing them to film inside the church, it was the least they could do. The relationship between the kid who plays the child version of the men in the scenes and the men whose stories are depicted is touching.
I highly recommend the film whether you grew up Catholic or not. It is a valuable insight into how organized religion can be corrupted and used for evil purposes.
https://www.bishop-accountability.org/d ... d_List.pdf
I had always assumed that these were "lone wolf" assailants that kept to themselves. At St. Elizabeth's it was a cluster and they had shared molestation houses and paraded children in front of one another as trophies. There are no graphic details or graphic visuals in the movie, the worst is mostly implied.
There is one powerful scene where they reenact a boy getting dropped off at one of the priest's group molestation house by his mom with a cake she had baked for the priest. The kid had been acting out in school. He had tried to tell his mom that he had been molested by the priest but she dismissed it. To try and help him "get right with God", mom baked a cake for the priest and then dropped the kid off at the priest's house and asked father to "counsel" the kid. You can guess what the "counseling" entailed. The scene hangs on the image of the priest smiling and waving at mom as she drives away while the kid stands next to him, eyes on the ground, holding a cake.
To the extent that parents are complicit in all of this isn't gone into in too much detail. But if you grew up in that culture you know how it worked. The priest always had a favorite altar boy or two. The priest being God's emissary, it was validation for the parents piety and goodness that their son was "chosen" out of all the altar boys and recognized for his purity and good Catholicism. You were a "made" family within the parish if your son was THE altar boy. It seems to be a pretty common thing that when asked years later; parents have no idea, never saw the signs, don't remember their kids saying anything. If anyone wanted to opt out of the altar boy track the question was, "what are the other parents going to think?"
Imagine being a broken adult offering your child up upon the altar of the pedophile to seek some sort of redemption from your chosen god. I would want to forget that shit too. These priests all had grooming and testing processes they had been perfecting over years and they knew what buttons to push and who to shove. They preyed upon the parents almost as much as the kids. They had to pick kids whose parents weren't likely to intervene or ask to many questions. I only remember two victims' parents appearing in the movie and they don't say much.
In the end it is a redemption story. The men in the story do seem to finally get some closure on their trauma after decades of hiding it and having it rule their lives in some ways. Minor kudos to St. Elizabeth's for allowing them to film inside the church, it was the least they could do. The relationship between the kid who plays the child version of the men in the scenes and the men whose stories are depicted is touching.
I highly recommend the film whether you grew up Catholic or not. It is a valuable insight into how organized religion can be corrupted and used for evil purposes.
I saw the worst minds of my generation empowered by madness, bloated farcical naked,
dragging themselves through the whitewashed streets at dawn looking for a grievance fix.
dragging themselves through the whitewashed streets at dawn looking for a grievance fix.
Re: procession
I saw the worst minds of my generation empowered by madness, bloated farcical naked,
dragging themselves through the whitewashed streets at dawn looking for a grievance fix.
dragging themselves through the whitewashed streets at dawn looking for a grievance fix.