Procession (2021)

directed by Robert Greene

Courtney Cheshire

Art has been one of Christianity’s most effective tools since it began. Biblical stories were only accessible via oral narration and images for much of the illiterate populations in the early Christian era and into the middle ages. Christian imagery has inspired fear, hope, and awe; sometimes all at once. In his groundbreaking documentary Procession, Robert Greene utilizes performance and visual storytelling to strike a hammer at the very foundation of the Catholic Church. While Greene is the credited director, the film is a collaboration with its six subjects: Joe Eldred, Mike Foreman, Ed Gavagan, Dan Laurine, Michael Sandridge, and Tom Viviano.

In Procession, Greene and a licensed therapist collaborate with Eldred, Foreman, Gavagan, Laurine, Sandridge, and Viviano in order to make five unique films that tell each man’s experience with sexual abuse at the hands of priests. The film is part documentary, part filmed therapy session, and part experimental anthology. The men collaborate on scripts, set building, location scouting, and even performing; the performances lead some of these men to play the role of the abusive priest. While elements of Procession may sound almost exploitative, Greene and his crew allow the men to lead each scene and only do what they are comfortable with.

The scenes are unique to each survivor, but all do something few people dare to do: visualize horrific and unforgivable abuse against a child. The scenes are not graphic or crude; they rather realistically allude to the event, dramatize surrounding events, or deconstruct the event in a fantasy or science fiction style. Regardless, the audience has no choice but to be confronted by the trauma and abuse that these men have endured. Like a parishioner seated before a gory crucifix at mass, the viewer can only look on in shock and awe. Catholic sex abuse no longer becomes a stray headline or an indecent joke—it’s real, because you are watching it.

With traumatic events, people often have an instant association, be it the location you were when it occurred, a specific image you saw on the news, or a line from a story about it. My instant association with Catholic sex abuse is a boy named Joey. Joey was abused repeatedly by Father Edward Graff starting at seven years old. The abuse was so severe he sustained permanent spinal injuries which resulted in his eventual overdose on painkillers. Shortly before his death he had written a letter to the diocese that said “Father Graff did more than rape me. He killed my potential and in doing so killed the man I should have become.” I heard Joey’s story buried at the end of a press conference about the 2018 Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report, a sprawling document that uncovered the rampant abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses. There are hundreds of stories like Joey’s just in that one report about one state, and I am sure that most people don’t even know about him. Joey’s story is one of the most horrific I have ever come across and it is criminal that the Attorney General of Pennsylvania had to tell it to me, not Joey. In a sea of suffering and sorrow, many of these stories are reduced to mere footnotes and forgotten as soon as they are put out into the world. Then there are the thousands like Joey who lost their battle with their trauma and aren’t here to tell their story and have nobody to tell it for them.

I often joke that I think about Jesus more than most religious people do, but as the years go on I truly think it becomes less and less of a joke. Religion and I, Catholicism specifically, have had a contentious and bizarre relationship my entire life. I was raised agnostic, but Catholicism and I had a brief will-they-won't-they relationship when I was five and my maternal family bought me a bunch of Bibles. Instead of being inspired or enamored by Jesus and his pals, I was deeply disturbed. When you’ve been agnostic for your entire existence and then you’re presented with graphic depictions of a man who is supposed to be the nicest, most wholesome guy ever strung up and bleeding, it's really a shock to the system.

As I grew up, I learned more about Catholicism and became infatuated with the visual language of the Catholic Church. It became a driving force in my own art and has continued to be very integral to who I am as a person and artist. My viewpoint of Catholic spirituality and iconography was forever changed in August of 2018, when I learned about Joey.

When the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report was released, Catholic sex abuse had become an anecdotal joke in American culture, a truth we all knew but didn’t bother to actually pause and think about. It’s an easy thing for atheists to use as an argument against religion and a cheap way to make a joke on late night television (let’s just put it out there that those jokes were never funny and never will be, ok?). Sure, people knew about the film Spotlight, but a film about the journalists isn’t necessarily painting the full picture. The Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report told specific stories of children who had been horrifically and systematically abused by men they were supposed to trust. I wanted people to know about this, to be outraged by it like I was. So I did the only thing a Catholic obsessed agnostic in their final year of art school could do: I visualized it.

Over the course of half a semester I compiled a database of the named abusers in the report and created a printed booklet of the introduction to the report complete with photo collage illustrations. Utilizing Catholic imagery from art history and actual photos of the abusers, I visually told these tragic stories. This was the instance of a picture telling a thousand words. This was using one of Catholicism’s greatest tools, visuals, against them. Visualizing an atrocity forces people to engage with it—it makes them uncomfortable, of course, but it confronts them and they must confront it back. Is it cruel as an artist to do this? Maybe. But I find it essential and effective. 

My visualization of the report is grounded in anger and frustration. The images are unsettling and confrontational because I was filled with so much rage while creating it. I had to scour the internet to find images of these horrible abusers, which led me down rabbit holes that ranged from pedophile priest databases to Facebook. Yeah, there was a priest who is named in this report that has an easily accessible and active Facebook account. I wanted to make people as angry and upset as I was, and it did seem to work. Classmates and loved ones were horrified when I would show the report and tell the stories. Of course there was one story I always shared: Joey’s.

When I look back on this project I see that it did accomplish what I wanted to do, but the delivery was harsh and uncomfortable. There was no beacon of hope besides the fact that people are now actually talking about a problem that had been swept under the rug for decades. Watching Procession for the first time showed me that there is no way to truly showcase the severity of Catholic sex abuse and educate people in a way that is going to reach for the core unless we can see that hope.

The scenes in Procession are some of the most raw and heart wrenching pieces of film I’ve ever seen, but the underscore of the entire documentary is healing. You can see these men heal before your eyes. Some of them have been open about their experiences for years, while others have suffered in silence. Greene gave them a priceless gift and allowed them to work through their own trauma and personalize the entire issue in a way that allows the world to understand and comprehend the horrors of sexual abuse. These men are a beacon to survivors who feel lost and hopeless. While nobody should be forced to confront their trauma, those who are able to can change countless lives and carry on for those before them who weren’t able to tell their story and protect those who are vulnerable to future abuse. Procession is more than a movie, it is a standard for how we should respect and listen to those who have endured abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church.

Courtney Cheshire is a graphic designer based in Georgia. She works primarily in higher education, DEI initiatives, and the film industry.