Source:
SNAP Network
"Twist Of
Faith"
Clergy abuse
documentary at Webster University; panel discussion to follow
by
Don Corrigan
An
award-winning documentary on clergy sexual abuse and a panel exploring such crimes
"happening in our own backyard" is slated for 8 p.m., Aug. 31, at Webster University's
Moore Auditorium.
"The
film is quite powerful," said David Clohessy, who will represent Survivors Network of
those Abused by Priests (SNAP) on the panel following the film. "It's great that St.
Louis Prosecuting Attorney Jennifer Joyce will be on the panel.
"Her
presence can remind us that clergy abuse is a serious crime," said Clohessy. "It
needs to be brought to the police. Most Catholics agree that this stuff should not be
covered up; it should not be swept under the rug. It needs to be cleaned up."
The film,
"Twist of Faith," follows the psychological journey of Tony Comes, a firefighter
from Toledo, Ohio, who has buried his past of being abused by a priest. A constant barrage
of news related to sexual abuse, coupled with a disturbing discovery in his personal life,
forces Tony to confront his demons.
"The
film is important because it shows what the pain is about, what the aftermath of clergy
abuse is all about," said Clohessy. "Here is a fireman, Tony, who buys his dream
house for his family, only to find that the priest who molested him lives down the
street."
Tony
Comes eventually contacted SNAP and received support and advice from other victims of
clergy sexual abuse. The documentary shows the Toledo fireman coming out with his own
story of abuse at a SNAP meeting at the Millennium Hotel in downtown St. Louis.
As a boy,
Tony was invited along with other parish kids to the priest's cabin in Michigan, where
they all would shoot pool, swim, skinny-dip and drink alcohol. The priest had his own
bedroom, but he would rotate sleeping assignments and select certain boys to share his
room.
The
charismatic religion teacher and priest from Central Catholic High School would molest the
boys in his room. Repeatedly, he cautioned them that "whatever happens at the
cottage, stays at the cottage," and he promised severe consequences if they uttered a
word to anyone.
The film
is interspersed with video excerpts of the abuser's testimony made in conjunction with
lawsuits brought against him and the Toledo Diocese. The testimony in these depositions
inspires both contempt and revulsion.
Kirby
Dick, the film's maker, said he was struck by the victim Tony Comes' loyalty to the
Catholic Church, despite his ordeal.
"Tony
did not want to sue the church -- it was agonizing for him," said Dick. "But
survivors experience a double betrayal. Not only was Tony abused by a priest he trusted,
but then, when he finally went to tell the bishop what happened, he felt betrayed again
when the bishop lied."
Voice
Of The Faithful
Other
panelists at the Wednesday, Aug. 31 event at Webster University, besides Clohessy and
Joyce, are Mike Pollard and Rev. Steve Robeson, both leaders in the Catholic group known
as Voice of the Faithful.
Mary
Kruger of Webster Groves, a liaison to SNAP with Voice of the Faithful, said her group was
at first working with the Film Series at Webster University for a private showing of
"Twist of Faith." Kruger said it was decided to open the film showing to the
public.
"I
met Tony in Chicago where I first saw this documentary," Kruger said. "It's so
sad. The turmoil that these people and their families go through. You put your kids in the
Catholic schools and try to instill religious faith, with the best of intentions, and it
is betrayed.
"Rape
is horrendous for women," noted Kruger. "It's horribly traumatic. Imagine what
it means for a boy being raped by a man who professes to be a representative of Jesus. A
lot of victims end up in drug and alcohol abuse. How fortunate this did not happen to
Tony, who is in this film."
Kruger
said she and a number of other members of the Voice of the Faithful now attend a church
called Saints Clare and Francis. It meets at the Evangelical Church of Christ in Webster
Groves.
"Steve
Kymes of our Voice of the Faithful is the one who suggested we reach out to SNAP,"
said Kruger. "He said that throughout this crisis in the Church, so many Catholics
have said nothing -- looked the other way. We want to reach out; we want to say to them
that we are sorry for what has happened to them.
"SNAP
and Voice of the Faithful are not interested in bringing down the Catholic Church,"
added Kruger. "But we want it to be accountable. We don't want all the hierarchy and
this constant cover-up to protect it. We want it to be the church that Jesus meant it to
be."
The
Story Continues
"What
really makes this film so important is that the story is in our own backyard, not just Toledo
or Boston," said SNAP's Clohessy. "Just this past week, three different priests
have been sued in cases where there are connections with St. Peter's in Kirkwood and in
Crestwood, and at several locations in South County.
"The
abusers are living in our midst and can be dangerous," added Clohessy. "The
prospect that others could be abused, because these people are never brought to justice
because of cover-up, is part of what motivates victims to go public and to bring legal
actions against the Church."
Stories
of clergy abuse and cover-up emerged in Louisiana in 1985, in Dallas in 1997 and in Miami
in 2000. When the pervasive sex abuse within the Boston Diocese saturated the national
media in 2002, the crisis became impossible to contain.
An
independent study conducted in cooperation with Church leaders now documents 10,667 U.S.
sex abuse survivors involving 4,392 accused priests. Some estimates of financial liability
for the Church approach almost $4 billion.
"Our
goal is to support the victims, but it's also to give support to priests of
integrity," said Joe Dahlem, a Kirkwood member of the Voice of the Faithful.
"One of the things that has shocked me in all this is the payouts that the church has
made -- that money comes from people like me.
"The
abuse crisis has been so costly in so many ways," added Dahlem. "I am impressed
that the victims are very sincere, and I am convinced that there are thousands of people
walking around who have been paid to shut up. That has to stop.
"The
crisis has to be addressed in an open way," said Dahlem. "I think giving lawyers
a lot of money -- to negotiate what is essentially a bribe for silence -- is just wrong.
It has to end. I hope that something really positive comes out of this event on August
31st."
The film,
"Twist of Faith," was a 2005 Academy Award feature nomination and an official
selection at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. For more program information, call 968-7487
or visit the Webster University Film Series Internet site: www.webster.edu/filmseries.html
TWIST OF
FAITH is the
powerful story of Tony Comes, a firefighter from Toledo, Ohio, who confronts the trauma of
boyhood sexual abuse by a Catholic priest.
"Kirby
Dick's Oscar-nominated "Twist of Faith" puts a face to the media stories in
recent years about allegations of sex abuse by Catholic priests. The face belongs to Tony
Comes of Toledo, Ohio, and add to that the faces of his wife, Wendy, and even his young
children, family and friends. The film reveals with devastating intimacy the mental
anguish of a person struggling to come to terms with crimes committed against him 20 years
before..." The Hollywood Reporter
Oscar-nominated
'Faith' debuts on HBO
Twist of Faith, the Oscar-nominated documentary debuting tonight at 10 on HBO, opens with
the words "Toledo, Ohio," and the taped deposition of a priest.
The Middle American town, the beefy, small-mouthed cleric - the images are haunting, and
they're meant to be, for they also haunt Anthony Comes, the firefighter, father, husband,
hometown guy and working-class Roman Catholic who is at the heart of this documentary and
who, as it turns out, has just learned that his brand new dream house is five doors down
from the parochial high school counselor who he says molested him when he was 14.
What follows is a riveting and heartbreaking account of one man's journey into the thick
of what most Americans now know...MORE
The
Boston Globe
Pain
of abuse lingers in vivid 'Twist'
There's something ordinary and familiar about the sexual abuse scenario in the HBO
documentary ''Twist of Faith." A Toledo priest takes boys to his lakeside cottage for
weekends of spiritual guidance, plies them with booze and adult freedoms, and inflicts
himself on them at night. The next day, and the next month, and the next year, the boys
block out the pain and the shame; decades later, of course, the pain and the shame erupt.
It's the classic story we've been hearing in the news for years now, and, from sheer
repetition, it has taken on an almost boilerplate quality. It's so commonplace, it has
begun to lose its emotional resonance in the telling. That's one of the valuable gifts of
''Twist of Faith,"which premieres tonight at 10. It once again personalizes the
priest abuse scandal, particularizing the tragedy so vividly...MORE
New
York
Newsday
A
man's wrenching 'Twist'
(3 1/2 STARS). The level of intimacy achieved in "Twist of Faith" is so
unsettling and deep that one wonders how it could have possibly been achieved. It is one
thing to hear adult victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests speak out in uneasy voices
on TV and radio. It is yet another, far more potent thing to be allowed into a victim's
home, life and struggle to come to grips with what happened...MORE
The
Seattle Times
Abuse
survivor leads audience through painful aftermath
The numbers are staggering: thousands of accusers filing claims of sexual abuse at the
hands of Catholic priests, millions of dollars paid in settlements across the country,
countless families devastated by the crisis within their church. But for his documentary
"Twist of Faith" (airing at 10 tonight on HBO), Kirby Dick wanted to tell just
one story: of a victim turned survivor...MORE
LA Weekly
Wounded
Souls: Director Kirby Dick exposes the psychic scars of abuse
At the beginning of the HBO documentary Twist of Faith: America Undercover, which was
nominated earlier this year for an Academy Award and gets its television debut this
Tuesday, firefighter Anthony Comes gives a personal video tour of his Toledo, Ohio,
firehouse � courtesy of a camera provided to him by director Kirby Dick. Comes
obviously loves his job, and when he trains the camera on the iconic fire pole, he can
still conjure the sentiment of what... MORE
Voice
A
rebuke to those who dismissed Mystic River's Greek tragic symmetries as jerry-rigged, the
documentary Twist of Faith recounts a real-life case where the specter of childhood sex
abuse endlessly seeps into the present. Tormented by memories of being molested as a
teenager, Tony Comes, now an adult with a family, unknowingly moves in five doors away
from his alleged abuser...MORE
THE
SAN FRANCISCO BAY
Guardian
"This
crisply edited, painfully honest doc from director Kirby Dick (Twist) views the Catholic
church's wide-ranging molestation scandal through the eyes of one victim: blue-collar
family guy Tony Comes of Toledo, Ohio. (We're also privy to the feelings of his wife and
other family members, including his children, thanks to Dick's preferred method of having
some of his film shot...MORE
The
Examiner
You
gotta have 'Faith'
Kirby
Dick, the notorious documentary filmmaker behind such films as "Sick: The Life and
Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist" (1997) and "Derrida" (2002), returns
with "Twist of Faith," fresh from the San Francisco International LGBT Film
Festival, and sporting an honest-to-goodness Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature
(it lost to "Born Into Brothels").The powerful and provocative new "Twist
of Faith" tells the story of Ohio firefighter and all-American family man Tony Comes,
who was molested as a boy by a Catholic priest, and, as an adult, attempts to sue...MORE
The
Washington Post
"It's
in extreme experiences that we understand what it means to be human," Kirby Dick said
at Sundance on the day he heard that his film, "Twist of Faith," was nominated
for an Academy Award. The film takes on the front-page issue of sexual abuse within the
Catholic Church and follows a handsome, emotional firefighter who seeks an apology from an
abusing priest and the church hierarchy. Dick gave the family camcorders, so that the
violent emotional saga of Tony Comes and his wife, Wendy, is punctuated by
middle-of-the-night soul-seeking. It's not the camcorder footage that nails audiences to
their seats, though; it's a tightly paced narrative that takes us right along on the
Comeses' marriage-mangling journey...MORE
CityPage
/ Minneapolis/ St. Paul
In
the wake of the child abuse scandals that have dogged the Catholic Church, this
Oscar-nominated doc by Kirby Dick (Sick) focuses on the experiences of Tony Comes, a
Toledo firefighter who discovers that the priest who molested him when he was a boy lives
just a few houses down the block from his. As painful memories come flooding back, the
victim becomes consumed with anger--to the degree that his emotional stability and his
marriage are both seriously threatened. Still, Comes decides to go public and files a
lawsuit in hopes of receiving an apology from the Toledo diocese (which lied to the Comes
family about its knowledge of the abuser's activities). As Comes connects with the
priest's other victims and a larger network of fellow survivors, he begins a positive, if
bumpy, healing process. Dick's approach is intensely intimate: Both Comes and his wife
provide their own footage, including the moment they talk to their young daughter about
what to do if the abuser ever approaches her. Ultimately, Comes's personal odyssey reveals
what others like him have discovered: a secretive, well-funded, and well-represented
worldwide religious institution that has appeared prepared to protect its own even if it
means telling lies. And yet Comes still feels a strong connection to the faith, which
makes the film all the more tragic and compelling... MORE
Toledoblade.com
/ Ohio
Powerful HBO film shows how Toledoan copes with his sexual abuse by a priest
For almost 20 years, Toledo fireman Tony Comes carried around a painful secret from his
past: Starting at the age of 14, he says, he had been repeatedly molested by a Catholic
priest, a religion teacher at Central Catholic High School and a friend, someone he'd
known and trusted...MORE
Variety.com
Oscar-nominated
"Twist of Faith" is a powerful and damning look at the long-term impact of
sexual abuse, as well as the less-than-exemplary response of Catholic Church officials to
allegations of priestly molestationA powerful and damning look at the longterm impact
of...MORE
The
Hollywood Reporter.com
Kirby Dick's Oscar-nominated "Twist of Faith" puts a face to the
media stories in recent years about allegations of sex abuse by Catholic priests. The face
belongs to Tony Comes of Toledo, Ohio, and add to that the faces of his wife, Wendy, and
even his young children, family and friends. The film reveals with devastating intimacy
the mental anguish of a person struggling to come to terms with crimes committed against
him 20 years before...MORE
Antitcool.com
News
When
I went to see the truly spectacular IN THE REALMS OF THE UNREAL just before the end of the
year, I started talking to the film's publicist, who told me that she was also working on
Kirby Dick's new film. This was still well before it was nominated for Best Documentary
Feature at the Oscars, but I was interested immediately. I think Kirby Dick is one of the
most consistently entertaining documentarians working right now, so when she offered to
send me a screener, I was thrilled...MORE
IndieWire
Taking
an unblinking approach to tough subject matter also extends to two arresting documentaries
that in lesser hands might have come off as ham-fisted or merely opportunistic. Kirby
Dick's Oscar-nominated “Twist of Fate" examines child molestation in the Catholic
church with a raw candor and bold honesty rarely seen in similar, and far lesser, news
reports on the same subject...MORE
Truth
in Entertainment
****
"Twist of Faith," a potent and meditative new documentary, explores the impact
of Gray's improprieties by following several months in the life of one of his victims. By
putting a single, very recognizably human face onto the scandal that has ravaged the
Catholic community, Twist of Faith personalizes the overwhelming statistics and
unthinkable violations. This isn't a story about how thousands of youths were betrayed by
the institution that was supposed to protect them; this is a bruising chronicle of how one
life was damaged nearly to the point of ruin...MORE
Sundane
on Ice
Dick's
feature is a forthright portrait of the damage that eddies outward from child abuse,
finding, after some searching, one Toledo, Ohio, victim to be the center of the piece, a
34-year-old firefighter and loyal Catholic with a wife and small daughter, who discovers
that his alleged abuser lives five doors down, a priest whose videotaped depositions -
emotionless, amoral - are the most chilling part of this disturbing, heartfelt,
unflinching, forthright film...MORE
Chicago
Sun-Times.com
Dennis
Gray sexually molested Tony Comes. The two Toledo, Ohio, men appear in Kirby Dick's
superbly disgusting documentary, although never in the same shot. Images of the former
priest invade Comes' thoughts when making love to his wife and potty-training his young
son. "No pill, no psychologist is ever going to completely take it away,"
charges Comes, now 35...MORE
Philadelphia
City Paper.net
A
married father of two with a loving wife and a decent job, Tony Comes might be the poster
boy for surviving sexual abuse. Molested by a Catholic priest who, as Comes recalls, would
go from fellating teenage boys to officiating communion in the space of an hour, Comes
first appears in Kirby Dick's documentary as a stoic, nose-to-the-grindstone sort, not
afraid to cry but not eager to either...MORE
THE FILMMAKERS
KIRBY DICK (DIRECTOR)
Kirby Dick is an award-winning Los
Angeles filmmaker. His latest theatrical release, “Derrida,” is a complex
portrait of the world-renowned French philosopher. The film premiered at the 2002
Sundance Film Festival, and won the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco Film Festival.
The prior year, Dick directed the innovative “Chain Camera,” a riveting
portrait of contemporary urban teenage life, which also premiered at the Sundance Film
Festival, and featured footage shot entirely by the subjects of the film.
In 1997, he directed the internationally
acclaimed “Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist,” which
won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Grand Prize at the Los
Angeles Film Festival. Released by Lion’s Gate Films, the film earned both an
IFP/West Spirit Award Nomination and an International Documentary Association Nomination
for Best Feature Documentary of 1998.
Dick’s other films for HBO include “Showgirls:
Glitz & Angst” and “The End,” a moving and profound chronicle of five
terminally ill patients and their families.
EDDIE SCHMIDT (PRODUCER)
Eddie Schmidt began collaborating with
Kirby Dick on his groundbreaking documentary, “Sick: The Life & Death of Bob
Flanagan, Supermasochist.” Schmidt went on to produce Dick’s next feature, the
critically acclaimed “Chain Camera,” which premiered in competition at the 2001
Sundance Film Festival. Schmidt then produced Dick’s high-energy musical
documentary “Showgirls: Glitz & Angst” for HBO’s “America Undercover,”
one of the highest-rated documentary specials of that year.
Schmidt, who began his career at New Line
Cinema, has also lent his producing talents to the TV series “Blind Date” and “The
Competition,” as well as original DVD content for films, including “Boogie Nights”
and “Se7en.” He has also been a contributor to National Public Radio’s popular
series “This American Life,” and co-wrote and directed the award-winning short, “Happenstance.”
Schmidt most recently completed “The End,”
a raw and intimate look at patients and families in a Los Angeles hospice program, which
premiered at the 2004 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival and aired on television as
part of the “CINEMAX Reel Life” documentary series. |
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