Agnus Dei

By now it's a half a century behind him, but in his dreams it still pursues Jesús Colin. Then he wakes up with a fright in the middle of the night, the funeral of his father burned into his retina. During the ceremony, the officiating priest forces a young altar boy into a sex act. Although this exact event never happened to Jesús, he was abused by a priest when he was 11. As a young adult, Jesús has come so far that he can speak about it frankly and from a certain distance: how it all began during his training as an altar boy, with a visit to the priest's home; how Father Carlos started off by asking him to take his clothes off, and before long was making him perform increasingly sexual acts; how Jesús found himself torn between pain and affection. After all, he loved the priest, although more as a father figure than as a lover. Jesús's personal story is representative of a widespread problem, one that the Catholic Church would prefer to sweep under the carpet. reveals that all parties involved work in collusion to keep things hushed up - from the Vatican and the priests to churchgoers and parents. The apotheosis, in which Jesús pays a visit to Father Carlos to confront him about his crime, is symbolic of the great silence.