Procession: L'Espoir au Bout du Chemin

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.

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.

Every person - especially every practicing Catholic - needs to see this moving and emotional film. Beautiful in its depth, it shows the heartbreaking, painful journey of men abused as boys by predatory priests, and the uphill battle for justice. The scope of the trauma is vast, and it may shock you to see the continuing whitewash given it by the Vatican. Are those who still dutifully attend Mass and continue to put money into the coffers of the Catholic Church complicit in the ongoing coverup? That is a moral and ethical question each of us must ask ourselves.

It's always been kind-boggling to me how people can be so disgusting. There is no excuse or appeal ever for pedophilia. I am appalled at what these men had to go through. It's so sad and heartbreaking to see grown men break down crying and feeling violated like that.

The concept of this movie was brilliant. It was the first time that I heard of cinema being used as a medium for therapy, and I loved it. Seeing the guys helping each other overcoming each of their own demons was sweet and powerful. I do wish the movie talked a bit more about the effect or mechanism of drama therapy, as this technique should be popular.

The pacing can be slow at times, but there were many strong and hopeful moments, especially when we started watching the scenes.

Overall, an amazing documentary that was both refreshing and powerful. 8-8.5/10.

"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.