Nuns vs. The Vatican
Three survivors, former nuns, come forward to seek justice against their rapist, a priest with close ties to the highest levels of the Catholic Church. The strength of this investigative documentary is the women themselves: their courage, their testimony, and the way they come together to reclaim a sense of agency and solidarity. While the story focuses in part on a former Jesuit, now Catholic priest, celebrated for his mosaic art across churches in Europe, the film ultimately exposes broader systems of protection and cover-up within the Vatican, including false expulsions, so-called “repentance” retreats, and a lack of accountability, as confirmed by an insider priest. Stories of abuse within the Church have long captured headlines—particularly involving altar boys and Indigenous residential schools—but Nuns vs. The Vatican brings long-overlooked female victims into the open, in an act of reckoning and a call for other survivors to speak out and refuse silence. —Michelle Svenson
Program Notes
Film program 90 minutes; followed by a post-screening conversation; total program runtime approximately 117 minutes
Director/s
Lorena Luciano
Lorena Luciano is a fellow of the Sundance Institute, the MacArthur Foundation, and IDA. Born and raised in Italy, she studied law in Milan before moving to New York to pursue filmmaking. Her HBO film It Will Be Chaos (2018) won an Emmy for Best Current Affairs Documentary. Her latest, Nuns vs. the Vatican (2025), won DOC NYC’s Subject Matter Award and Hamptons DocFest Human Rights Award.
Expected Guests
LORENA LUCIANO • Director
FILIPPO PISCOPO • Producer
MARY DISPENZA • SNAP
BARBARA DORRIS • Protagonist
ANNE BARRETT-DOYLE • Moderator | Anne Barrett-Doyle is co-director of BishopAccountability and co-founded Coalition of Catholics and Survivors that organizes activism in the Boston archdiocese.