Church Pedophilia Film Sets Box Office Record in Catholic Poland

(Bloomberg) -- A Polish feature film about the abuses of the Roman Catholic church is setting attendance records at the country’s box office.

‘Kler’ -- named after the Polish word for clergy -- attracted over 935,000 viewers last weekend, the country’s best opening three days in 30 years, according to the Association of Polish Filmmakers. The movie, which explores the themes of child abuse, romantic liaisons, corruption, greed and alcoholism by clerics, has been harshly criticized by Poland’s conservative government with close links to the church.

The debut puts a spotlight on the Polish church’s role in concealing cases of pedophilia, an issue that has largely been ignored in the staunchly Roman Catholic nation even after public outcries about such offenses in Ireland and the U.S. An appellate court in Poznan, Poland, is expected to rule Tuesday on whether to uphold a 1 million zloty ($233,000) fine on the church in a case of a priest convicted of imprisoning and raping a 13 year old girl -- an unprecedented penalty for the religious institution in the east European country.

“The film amounts to a very serious conversation with Poles” about the sins of the church, Janusz Gajos, who plays an arch-bishop in the movie, told TVN24. “It should be a shock -- we know of many incidents that are unimaginable, which take place behind the church’s curtains and whose perpetrators are then protected.”

Public television, run by a former ruling party lawmaker, said the movie is a “tacky provocation.” Meanwhile, Poland’s human rights ombudsman is looking if a decision by local authorities in Ostroleka, a town in north-eastern Poland, to refuse to show the movie in a municipal movie theater breaches the constitution.

“It’s a disgusting propaganda film made along the patterns that Nazi Germans used to make films about Jews,” Pawel Soloch, the head of the National Security Bureau, a body that advises the Polish president on defense and military issues, told Radio Zet.

The film topped Fifty Shades of Grey as the country’s biggest blockbuster.

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