In this biopic, Catholic priest Adolf Daens (Jan Decleir) arrives in the small Belgian village of Aaist in the 1890s and is appalled by widespread economic and sexual exploitation of the women and children working in the textile factories. After his newspaper editorials condemning the town's labor conditions anger both the factory bosses and his church superiors, Daens founds the Christian Democrats, a new alternative to Socialist agitation, to fight for worker's rights.