source: Procession

source: Procession

Profound, one of the best, most touching documentaries I've ever seen. These men's personalities shine bright. They each show tremendous courage in sharing their trauma. You can feel the pain, like it's the hardest thing in the world for them to do, but they speak up anyway. All badasses. The abuse stories show glimpses of the unimaginable horror of religious child sexual abuse, but the true focus of this documentary lies on the men's shared fight to overcome through therapy, honesty, sharing with each other and with us, and art. Their abuse is beautifully and authentically translated into dramatic pieces, which are interwoven throughout in the film. Hearing what happened, visiting locations, creating the scenes and then eventually seeing the finished art pieces, feels like catharsis. It is also very, very painful, as we get an extremely intimate look into the worst moments of these men's lives, moments they need to be freed of. And we witness that fight for freedom. It is such a privilege. The horrible, horrible enablers over at the corrupt, lying, life-destroying higher echelons of the Catholic Church can go suck my tit, because nothing can silence to the powerful message of freedom and brotherhood preached in Procession, whether they want to address it or not. The people who made this movie are heroes, all of them.

This has to stop. It's ruined so many lives. Wonderful stories of hope and survival. Kudos to all the survivors in this documentary, they are so brave to do this.

It is incredible to think that many members of the Catholic community still refuse to acknowledge the systemic rape of children in spite of waves of survivors coming forward with their abuse. Procession is one of the most powerful depiction of the lifelong trauma that historic child sexual abuse survivors have endured and their battle against great odds to hold the Catholic Church accountable for their complicity. The cancerous spread of pedophilic priests in Kansas City is mirrored by Ballarat in Australia, where the Diocese of Ballarat admitted in a statement in 2019 that high-ranking clergy protected one of their own against prosecution for child sexual abuse claims. Even the children knew instinctively that what was happening to them was deeply wrong. Yet these men abused their power, paid no heed to morality and contradicted their own teachings. The pain, shame and anger etched into the faces of each of these men are plain to see. As they recount their abuses, they briefly revert to the boys who were violated and there is a grief for the life they could have had instead. Alongside the depravity of their abuse, there is warm humanity in their brotherhood as they support each other towards healing. Michael said it best, "people do things for other people sometimes they don't do for themselves". Pedophilic priests may go much further back in history and it is probably the promise of unfettered power that lured these self-important opportunistic parasites into pursuing priesthood. Hence ironically Catholicism becomes a bastion for amorality and synonymous with pedophilia.

I couldn't stop crying as I feel the pain from each one of the survivors. A great documentary indeed and that young boy plays the role had such a big responsibility to act, understand and absorb the anger, pain feels by the survivors. It's heartbreaking and I hope catholic archbishop will take serious in matter like this. I am catholic myself and this is not right for everyone, all the authority to turn a blind eyes due to statue of limitations. Something must be done so it won't happen to any children ever again.

After so many positive reviews and being raised Catholic myself, I decided to watch this film. To be honest, I had a hard time watching this movie, not because of the content, but the slow movie pace. The story behind this documentary is true. However too much of the movie's time was wasted explaining how they searched for places that they remember from their childhood, and some of the dead ends along their search. The scenes were reenactments using the abused men to play the parts of their abusers, as well as one young actor, playing the role of the men as a child. But again, a lot of boring wasted time watching them rehearse for some of the scenes. I felt the men's pain, yet they did not do much to explain what they went through. The use of the word rape was used once or twice, but other than that there was nothing explicit. We are told that some of them were threatened, with separation from the church or their family, and burning in hell. We also know the boys did not want to be alone with some of the priests. What I didn't hear or see, was father so and so cornered me at such and such a place and tried to grope me, or whatever it is that was done. The acts, the when and where were not really explained very well. Not a visual, as this is a painful documentary, but some explanation. The whole movie just seemed like vengeful condemnation of the entire Catholic church, rather than a healing from the torment done by the bad apples within the church that were their abusers, and those that covered it up! If you want a good movie that tells this story in the way I was expecting, it to be told, I recommend that you watch a 2-part TV move. "The Boys of St. Vincent" and "The Boys of St. Vincent: 15 Years Later" both from 1992.

This is an excellent Documentary and demonstrates the difficulty bringing Catholic Priests to justice for their Pedophilia. While our Conservative Bishops rule our Church we just have to ignore their teachings on morality. These Bishops belong in prison, but it won't happen. We just ignore them and refuse to give any money to our Church. The Documentary itself shows how six men look back on the crimes that changed their lives forever. They take on the roles of the perpetrators and play out some horrific scenes. At the same time they show the essential indifference from the Vatican and the Kansas Judicial Systems. The perpetrators go without punishment and receive only a slap on the hand from Rome.

These men should have never had this happen to them when they were innocent and young. The Catholic Church needs to pay for this. It makes me so upset this clergy too advantage of children. It is sooo wrong.

"Procession" presents a radical new concept regarding the reasoning to craft a story: to create something, not about people, but for them. Greene offers cinema as a medium of therapy, a tool of processing, to 6 survivors of sexual assault at the hands of the catholic church with each crafting a short film about how they wanted their stories to be told and seen. In the wrong hands, such a delicate matter could have been a disaster but instead, Greene illustrates a devastating portrait of men who never quite healed. Men who are still fighting from sunrise to sundown to release the anchor that keeps them entrenched in their pasts. Greene achieves this feat through a number of avenues. First, is his intelligent and restrained decision to focus shots on how these events have racked the bodies of the survivors, second, was the score by Keegan Dewitt and Dabney Morris, which provides a lot of heavy lifting to the emotional gravity of the film, third, was how incredibly well-edited the short-films are with the rest of the documentary; side note, this can especially be felt in the final 10 incredibly moving minutes of the documentary. However, where Procession begins to falter is with the short-films presented by the survivors, which although clearly therapeutic, isn't the most effective cinematic tool due to their inexperienced quality. Many times they will take you out of the documentary altogether but on the other hand, the project wouldn't be possible without the shorts so it's a catch-22. All in all, Greene has made a riveting documentary that even with its short-comings is still incredibly effective but more importantly, and perhaps impressively, has made the lives of 6 men all the better for it.