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October 30, 2018
Polish film The Clergy sparks hundreds of allegations of abuse in Catholic Church
Based on real events, Kler has broken box office records and divided Catholic country
A film depicting Polish clerics as corrupt, drunken fornicators and paedophiles is smashing box office records in Poland, sparking controversy and encouraging hundreds of people to come forward with allegations of recent and historical abuse.
The film broke Polish box officer records on its opening weekend , and has been seen by almost 3 million people since its release at the end of September.
Movie About Church Sexual Abuse Is a Contentious Hit in Poland
“Clergy”a new movie by the director Wojciech Smarzowski...is a smash hit in Poland. It opened on Sept. 28, and more than 1.7 million people saw it during its first week. That is a huge figure for a country of 38 million.
A cinema in Zabrze, a city in the south of the country, showed the movie up to 24 times a day to meet demand...On Sept. 21, it was shown at the Gdynia Film Festival, and received an 11-minute ovation.
It starts with three priests drinking vodka until they can barely speak. One then drives drunk to a parishioner’s apartment and mumbles his way through the giving of last rites.
The picture of Poland’s priesthood only goes downhill from there. The priests steal money from their congregations, spy on each other, and exploit their connections with politicians, journalists and the police.
But much of “Clergy” focuses on one issue: Clerical child abuse, which the movie says the church covered up. In one scene, it incorporates accounts from real people who say they were abused.
This may not sound like the plot for a blockbuster movie — let alone one that features a heavy dose of comedy — but “Clergy” is a smash hit in Poland. It opened on Sept. 28, and more than 1.7 million people saw it during its first week, according to Kino Swiat, the movie’s distributor. That is a huge figure for a country of 38 million.
A cinema in Zabrze, a city in the south of the country, showed the movie up to 24 times a day to meet demand, the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported.
The film’s popularity is something of a surprise, given that Poland is a predominantly Roman Catholic country, with nearly 40 percent of the population attending a weekly Mass. The governing right-wing Law and Justice party promotes an image of Poland based on Christian values, and some of its members have attacked the film.
Jacek Kurski, a former member of Parliament for the Law and Justice party who is now the chairman of the state television company Telewizja Polska, called “Clergy” a “provocative, trashy movie” in an interview with the broadcaster. He added that it was “just another attack on the Catholic Church, brutal and untrue.”
A spokesman for the Polish Bishops’ Conference, the central organ of the church in the country, declined to comment.
“Clergy” stirred controversy in Poland even before it opened. On Sept. 21, it was shown at the Gdynia Film Festival, and received an 11-minute ovation. That made it a front-runner for one of the festival’s prizes, awarded to the movie that receives the longest applause. But the award was canceled soon afterward, leading newspapers to speculate that organizers had panicked about potentially having to give “Clergy” victory. The organizers denied that suggestion in a statement, saying the applause for other films in the festival had been interrupted, making it impossible to decide the prize fairly.
Mr. Smarzowski, the director, said in an email that he decided to make “Clergy” after being overwhelmed by the church’s power in Poland. “The church is present in our offices, on the street, and pushes us home and to bed,” he said. The church’s failure to deal with child abuse — “hiding pedophiles in their cassocks and transferring them from parish to parish” — also needed discussion, he said.
“This movie is addressed to Catholics,” he added. “I hope that after leaving the cinema, they will realize they are co-responsible for what they see on screen.”
The success of “Clergy” is even more unexpected given the reactions to recent productions at Polish theaters. In 2017, Catholics and right-wing groups protested regularly outside the Powszechny Theater in Warsaw, where “The Curse,” directed by the Croatian director Oliver Frljic, was being performed. In one of the iconoclastic play’s scenes, a woman performs fellatio on a sex toy attached to a statue of Pope John Paul II, who is an idol in Poland.
Actors in “The Curse” said they received threats. Foul-smelling butyric acid, sometimes used in stink bombs, was poured inside the theater, forcing it to shut for a month. Days after its premiere, prosecutors opened an investigation into whether anyone had committed blasphemy. (No one has been charged.) After the Polish theater festival Dialog tried to stage the play last October, promised funding was withdrawn.
Problems have continued for the Powszechny Theater. On Sept. 23, it was due to perform “The Curse” on tour in Slupsk, in northern Poland, but the venue was subjected to another butyric acid attack. The play had to be moved to a basketball court.
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Pawel Lysak, the Powszechny’s co-director, said in a telephone interview that cultural censorship was a growing problem in Poland, but, he added, “Clergy” showed that the church’s history of child abuse could at least be discussed. “Now is a completely different time from when we did ‘The Curse,’ ” he said. “A year ago, the bishops did not talk at all about pedophilia. Now they do every week. It’s a very good time for ‘Clergy.’ ”
Pope Francis’ recent moves on clerical sexual abuse, including meeting victims during a trip to Ireland, focused many in Poland on the issue, Mr. Lysak added. Events in Poland may also have helped. On Oct. 2, an appeals court in the western city of Poznan ruled that a Roman Catholic order should pay damages to a woman who was sexually abused when she was 13. And next month, the Polish church will publish a long-anticipated report on child abuse.
Posted by Wild Thing at October 30, 2018 12:22 PM
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