Long it was a taboo subject, and now a documentary about child set abuse by Catholic clergy in Poland a new discussion. The Church brings on the Defensive.
Within three days, eleven million people have seen the documentary. Not on the big screen or for the best television at the end of time, but via Youtube, the Premiere of “But say it took place just anyone”. Crowd funding helped the film project, after the authors found a TV station wanted to produce it. Now journalists tearing up a conversation with them. Since then, she has been made over the past weekend and into the net, the documentation is all the rage. “I think there was just a need for a movie like this. In the media, more and more contributions to the topic appeared in the Film “clergy” altered the tone of the discussion,” says Director Tomasz Sekielski. In the case of the Youtube Trends in Poland, the Film climbed out of the Stand to square one, but also in other countries, such as Iceland, Ireland or Norway, he is at the top of the list. The Version with English subtitles around the world.
The tormentor in the eyes
The brothers Sekielski (Marek is the producer) has managed not abuse to bring victims before the camera, but to confront them with their abusers. In the meantime, the elderly offender in the movie of her own past. After years of Silence to reveal the protagonists of the film’s most intimate Details. “I was seven or eight. You have touched me where not to touch in intimate Places,” says the 39-year-old Anna and looks into the eyes of her torturer. After a few attempts, she calls the Assault: “you have masturbated with my Hand.” The priest, who is something to enter in front of her, acting on a kind of focus, as if he had expected this day for a long time, perhaps feared, maybe even purification hoped for. With hands in front of his face, the priest in the movie, asks: “What should I do now?” He regrets his deeds and pray often for those he abused. Anna had come early to him, as he was still in the forces, he would make up for it “somehow”. “You just offered me money?” is indignant Anna. No money could make up for it.
Thickness of the walls of the Church
Since then, Poland speaks about this Film – and not just on the Internet. For a country where still about 90 percent profess to Catholicism and the word of the priest, especially since the country still has weight, is this new, under the skin in-depth discussion of the abuse nothing more than a social earthquake. Not only because of the personal stories of the victims, but also because the Film mechanisms reveals resistance within the Church to which the victims encounter: Locked doors, the-Protecting-against-the-perpetrator, the General distrust of the Victims and their stories – this and the Film shows just as strongly as he is one of the actual, part hair-raising cases of abuse to effect a cure.
Warsaw in August 2018: protest against child abuse by Polish priests
“Pedophilia in the Church is always a systemic Problem,” said the Jesuit priest Jacek Prusak in an interview with private broadcaster TVN24. “We should not reduce it to the offender. This is only one side of the coin. The other is the Institution in which you commit the deeds that justifies them to Do or facilitate.”
Because of the repression and Concealment, in the Film “clergy” denounced by the fictional example (https://www.dw.com/de/polen-film-heizt-missbrauchsdebatte-an/a-45678388) is exceeded by the documentation shown reality. The Film shows how a child abuse sentenced a Clergyman, was in prison elsewhere, again in the children and youth pastoral care. With a hidden camera filmed, you can see him again in front of children in the Church. Now the man himself has requested his dismissal from the priesthood.
Brave versus “worthless”
To reactions on the part of the Church leadership, it was not necessary to wait for a long time. Poland’s Primate, Wojciech Polak, responded very quickly. Prior to the Film’s Premiere, it was still different. Like so many Church leaders, were the authors also of to him a rejection. At the end of the documentation, Sekielski, presented the official response of the episcopate, the Film was biased. After the Internet Premiere, then the 180-degree turn. The Church top apologized on the weekend for the Victims; Primate Polak thanked the filmmaker for his “courage” and was moved. “The great Suffering of the victims brought the feeling of pain and shame. I thank all of you who have the courage to tell of their Suffering. I apologize for every wound that was inflicted by men of the Church,” said Polak in a written statement.
Child abuse in the ranks of the Catholic Church shaken Poland, the Land of Pope John Paul II.
In a similar tone, the Chairman of the bishops ‘ conference, Stanislaw Gadecki said. In contrast, there is the gdańsk ore-Bishop Leszek Glodz, the ultra-conservative branch of the Catholic Church in Poland is attributed to. To a reporter he stated that he had other things to do, as a “value-free” view. A few hours later, politicians of the left-liberal party “spring showed” the movie Glodzs house. Among the parties, which is expected in the autumn parliamentary representation, is the establishment of the, which occurs most clearly critical of the Church.
Will follow words with action?
Even Grzegorz Schetyna, the head of the largest opposition party, “civic platform”, which was often trying to have a good relationship to the Church, was careful to distance: “The fight against pedophilia is not a fight with the Church, but to defend children, we cannot be held back.” Several opposition parties are calling for an expanded investigation Committee, the victims should be made up of representatives. Also the access to the Church archives was not required in this context.
The Premiere of the film comes in the midst of a politically hot time in Poland. The European election, in the autumn, the parliamentary elections will follow and in the next year, the President is to be elected. The ruling PiS party, which likes to present itself as the guardian of the Faith and Church, is now a driving force in the fight against child abuse in the ranks of the Catholic Church. His party fights against the abuse, PiS party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski at a campaign appearance, in which he hinted at stricter penalties. “Particularly strict to those who are responsible for children to be punished, and this is also true for priests, but also for celebrities. We want to relentlessly be strict. But this means that the offences entitle the holder of some of the priests to attack the Church? You may now insult Catholics? No!”
382 priest Abuse since 1990: Wojciech Polak (re.), Archbishop of Gniezno and Primate of the Polish Church in March
Meanwhile, the Cabinet of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki actually brought criminal law changes on the way. In the future, sexual offenders will face up to 30 years in prison, a limitation should no longer exist, and the age was increased from 15 to 16 years.
A: According to this Film, you can’t silence, and the topic swept under the carpet. Especially since the authors are planning a sequel. Also, a book should appear. There are just too many stories that could be told in two hours. There are stories that kept the Church for a long time. To gamble, maybe too long, to a place of trust, support and consolation, what you have always been.
The priest, complains a Church’s internal expert in the subject, will, in the meantime, associated first of all with “pedophilia”. The result: fewer and fewer seminarians, the droves avert the youth from the Church in General and religious education in particular. In short: an accelerated secularization.