Diary of a City Priest

David Morse captures without overstatement the persona of a dedicated priest who follows his calling to serve in an inner city community parish. There is no sugarcoating the frustration and sorrow he must embrace in order to love and serve people on the distant frontier between urban poverty and mainstream America. The portraits of the priest, his parish staff, and his parishioners are so true to life that the director must know this scene first hand. No attempt is made to beatify the priest or to create artificial and unrealistic tales of triumph and redemption among his parishioners, and consequently the viewer's experiences of both tragedy and hope arise from what feels like the substratum of true human experience.