Jacob Voelz is a Catholic priest in a state penitentiary, tormented by prayer.

And while the community is waiting for him to celebrate Mass with his colleague and friend Dominik Bertram, two police officers ask the latter to follow them to the station to be placed in custody.

Jacob will learn from his friend and Deputy Vicar General that Bertram is accused of sexually molesting a teenager.

At the same time he also experiences the disturbing news with respect to a civilian inmate accused of the same crime. But while Bertram, incarcerated is attacked by the other inmates and beaten only to be released on bail, the same fate will not follow for the other inmate who will receive a twenty-year prison sentence.

At first Jacob does not believe the charges against Bertram, especially since the latter denies any responsibility, but he does not hesitate to undertake a private investigation that will lead him to a bitter truth.

Jacob is a man haunted by sin; his continuous and obsessive prayer gives a glimpse from the outset of a secret that perhaps accompanies him and opens up all the unspoken and unexplained in this film.

Evidently, the discovery of the truth also throws him into a crisis of faith, especially where he grasps in the ecclesiastical institutions the immoral need to protect and cover up the responsibilities that burden his friend.

Jacob also traumatically discovers the reality of another boy being abused by his friend Dominik, and his moral outrage grows, in addition to his intimate discomfort.

Justifying such behavior so as not to besmirch the name of the Church, especially "because the Church is a mother and a mother is not to be hit" as his superiors tell him, makes him realize that there cannot be two truths, one we accept and one we are afraid of.

He realizes that the church hierarchy exercises control and enforces silence through secrecy, intimidation and the threat of exclusion especially when he hears the shocking confession of Mike Rubin, the abuse victim and his mother Vera.

Something too big haunts him and he is unable to lie to himself, even where parents of abused boys seem to compromise with the power the church itself wields over troubled boys and families.

Justifying Bertram's behavior by trying to acknowledge "everything" he would have done for the boys seems as unacceptable to him as silencing the omertà of the institutions that did everything to clear his name, making him out to be someone who should be helped and not judged.

Jacob is tormented, the other inmate reminds him that he was convicted because he does not have a white collar like his, the church is betraying him as it did his friend Bertram.

If "God protects you no matter what you do or what you will do," the word of church powers-that-be, taking care of the youth center does not seem in good hands to him.

The throwing of the Bible at the cross makes him lash out in anger at those who are trying to buy their innocence over those who are innocent indeed.

But the church moves on, and during the ordination ceremony of new priests something happens that uncovers the reiteration of the crime.

Unforgettable are Bertram's words when accused of abusing Mike, he seems to exonerate himself by declaring himself in love....

Jacob's violent reaction at this point seems dutiful and revealing of all the unsaid and unseen in the film...

That eventual only supposed that restores him to reality, credibility and relativity especially with respect to a human morality too human to be so ethically transcendental.

The sexual continence demanded by the Church i.e., that of resisting all temptations and seductions of the flesh would not be possible unless accompanied by prayer, the spirit of service, humility and charity...

But as Kant teaches

What is the relationship between moral behavior and happiness?

No finite and mortal being for Kant can ever fully attain holiness and thus genuine happiness but one who pursues his own happiness in an immoral way deliberately chooses to oppress other people and thus irreparably harms humanity not only in others but also in himself.

By giving up the practical use of reason, however, the immoral individual makes himself a prisoner of his own desires, completely determined by them. His every action will be dictated by limited and changing purposes, upon reaching which he will feel nothing but new desires; he will always be at the mercy of his heteronomous behavior dictated by the passions rather than autonomous behavior dictated by practical reason, which is translated into the moral law.

Therefore, Kantian transcendental morality, without bothering divine law, would suffice to enact ethical behavior through the use of that reason so practical as to understand that to abuse a minor is to harm your neighbor and yourself.

Jacob senses this, feels it, because morality is "feeling good" and depends on the free will and implements the will of reason.

To all this and more urges the viewing of The Culpable where all that is phenomenally seen and told does not exhaust if not partially all that is noumenically deferred to the unspoken, the unseen that makes this experience a unique knowledge, at times unspeakable and inexplicable.

20-Aug-2023 by Beatrice