Putting a 'Spotlight' on how the church lost its way | Faith Matters

By Alexander Santora
NJ.com
November 17, 2015

http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2015/11/putting_a_spotlight_on_how_the_church_once_lost_it.html

This photo provided by Open Road Films shows, Michael Keaton, from left, as Walter "Robby" Robinson, Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron, Mark Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes, Rachel McAdams, as Sacha Pfeiffer, John Slattery as Ben Bradlee Jr., and Brian d'Arcy James as Matt Carroll, from the film, "Spotlight." Photo by Kerry Hayes

This photo provided by courtesy of Open Road Films shows, Rachel McAdams, from left, as Sacha Pfeiffer, Mark Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes, Brian d'Arcy James as Matt Carroll, Michael Keaton as Walter "Robby" Robinson and John Slattery as Ben Bradlee Jr., in a scene from the film, "Spotlight." Photo by Kerry Hayes

This photo provided by courtesy of Open Road Films shows, Michael Keaton, left, as Walter "Robby" Robinson and Mark Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes, in a scene from the film, "Spotlight." Photo by Kerry Hayes

This photo provided by Open Road Films shows, Rachel McAdams, from left, as Sacha Pfeiffer, Mark Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes and Brian d'Arcy James as Matt Carroll, in a scene from the film, "Spotlight." Photo by Kerry Hayes

It was a dreary, rainy, cold Tuesday evening last week when I trudged over to Union Square, Manhattan, to see, "Spotlight."  The film depicts The Boston Globe's investigative unit uncovering the enormous sexual scandal in the Boston Archdiocese back in 2002. 

Entering the theater just before endless trailers began, I was amazed to find not only a few seats left, but also that most of the audience was made up of young adults. The movie was only playing in one other uptown theater. After two hours and eight minutes, I was tempted to run up to the front of the theater and ask the people to stay seated so we could talk. 

They could not leave the theater after the film ends with the publication of the front-page story on the Feast of Epiphany. The reporters from this unit come into work on that January Sunday, and the phones are ringing off the hook as perhaps scores of abuse victims are calling in their stories after reading the article. This Pulitzer Prize winning investigative unit of the newspaper, called Spotlight, uncovered not only that as many as 90 priests in the Boston area abused children and teens, but also that Cardinal Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston, knew for years about some of these priests and shuffled them from parish to parish where they abused again and again. 

This audience, I thought,  cannot leave thinking that this is the Catholic Church today. Or that nothing was ever done. Or that this was typical of every diocese, of all priests, and that Law was representative. But that was the power of this film.  It wasn't a propaganda film against the church. It touches on matters of celibacy and sealed settlements and clerical life, but it wasn't taking a stand. 

"Spotlight" was simply showing how a group of reporters, most identifying as lapsed Catholics, struggled to unearth the enormity of the problem.  While the film is being universally praised in what some say is the best film about newspaper journalism ever, it is actually investigative journalism 101. You see how reporters track down every lead, knock on every door, persist in speaking to principals, sacrifice their personal time, talk to each other and their editors and never flinch regardless of the status of the person in front of them or on the telephone. Mark Ruffalo as reporter Michael Rezendes is superb along with the ensemble cast of Michael Keaton, Liev Schreiber, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery and Brian d'Arcy James.   

That being said, this film is tragic because the viewer sees what happens when the clerical culture is paid deference by the authorities and powerful even when immoral and illegal activity continued. Boston is what happens when power is not held accountable. While accusations and charges against priests went back as far as the early 1980's, the Catholic bishops never united to effectively respond until the Boston report, which unleashed a flurry of accusations all over the U.S. and throughout the world.  As many as 4,000 U.S. priests had credible accusations of abuse over a 50-year period, according to the report issued by John Jay College.  And $4 billion in settlement money has been paid out by the church.              

The most squeamish parts of the film are the testimonies of the abused speaking as adults. They are actors but their words are taken from real transcripts and real victims. Victims and their families were ignored, condemned, ostracized and forgotten. Lives were lost from suicide, ruined by drugs and addiction and families broken up. The best way to show sorrow is to ensure that this never happens again. And the church has been trying and succeeding. This dark period in U.S. Catholic history can never be forgotten or dismissed. 

One line in the film reverberated, "If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one." Many were complicit in turning the other way – judges, prosecutors, lawyers, police, priests, parents, parishioners, bishops and cardinals.  This was the larger story told in "Spotlight."

Before the credits rolled, there were two full screens listing all the archdioceses and dioceses in the U.S. where there were major abuse scandals.  Newark was not on the list.  Little comfort, though, to even one child whose innocence was taken away because no one in the village and church cared enough to speak up.