August 19, 2005

"Twist of Faith": Facing the demons of clergy abuse

SEATTLE (WA)
Seattle Times

By Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times movie critic

The painful documentary "Twist of Faith" follows Tony Comes of Ohio as he confronts the priest who sexually abused him as a child.

"Twist of Faith," Kirby Dick's devastating documentary about one man's struggle to come to terms with childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a priest, is only at the Grand Illusion for two days, presumably because it's been shown (and will be repeated) on HBO. But if you haven't caught it on cable (or in its local premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival earlier this summer), it's worth making the time this weekend: Dick's film puts a human face on a churchwide scandal that sometimes seems too big to comprehend.

That face belongs to Tony Comes, a sad-eyed firefighter in his early 30s who lives with his wife and small children in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio. He's a gentle man, with a sweet rapport with his children, and as Dick began his filmmaking, Comes had just made a soul-wrenching decision: to go public as part of a lawsuit against the Toledo diocese, one of many sexual-abuse complaints filed against a local priest named Dennis Gray.

Posted by kshaw at August 19, 2005 07:15 AM