In the "Spotlight" - Required Viewing

By Bonnie Squires
Main Line Media News
January 23, 2016

http://mainlinemedianews.com/articles/2016/01/23/main_line_times/opinion/doc569e700f8286c538596208.txt

Looking back over 2015, probably the biggest thing that happened in our part of the world was the whirlwind visit of Pope Francis. Parts of Lower Merion and Wynnefield, and Saint Joseph’s University, will forever carry the honor of having housed or seen Pope Francis at their addresses. His message of compassion and love touched all of us, Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

Even though most of us watched non-stop on television, we felt a kinship with Pope Francis. I got a chance to wave to him on City Avenue as he was driven from the seminary and Saint Joseph’s campus to the Parkway for the giant Mass. This pope gives off an aura, just as his predecessor did in 1979.

With this in mind, I thought it was very courageous of Juliet Goodfriend and the Bryn Mawr Film Institute to schedule showings of the new film “Spotlight” during the Christmas holidays.

Spotlight” is the fact-based dramatic story of how the Boston Globe dug in under a new editor, Marty Baron, and ultimately exposed the pedophile priest scandal and cover-up in the Boston Archdiocese.

Even though we all know what happened, “Spotlight” manages to maintain tension and drama, as we see reporters who are all Catholics, albeit lapsed, wrestle with their feelings and fears about attacking the Catholic Church and all the powerful people in Boston. Friendships are strained as people continue to sweep the dirty business under the rug, refusing to confirm information which has been kept secret with pay-offs by the church to the many child victims.

The Globe itself is not free from guilt, as a victims’ organization had mailed proof of the accusations years before, proof which was given a cursory glance and then buried by the editors who preceded Baron.

Baron, by the way, is now executive editor of the Washington Post, after winning six Pulitzers for the Globe in the 11 years which he served there as editor. In interviews, Baron commended the screenwriters, Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer, as well as the actor Liev Schreiber who played Baron.

The cast is an amazing ensemble of A-list actors, who are totally credible as hard-digging journalists who refuse to take “no” for an answer: The deck seems always to be stacked against the intrepid reporters and editors, but they refuse to go away, encouraged by the head of the investigative team, played by Michael Keaton, and their “outsider” editor, played by Liev Schreiber.

“Spotlight” gives us the view of just a couple of victims of clergy sexual abuse - not enough to be maudlin, but enough to feel the tragedy of their lives. And a taste of the disillusionment of the church’s true believers and faithful congregants when the awful truth is revealed in headline after headline and article after article in the pages of the Globe.

I used to have a direct line to Catholic orthodoxy through my friend Steve Mikochick, a law professor at Temple’s Beasley School of Law, whom I used to drive to campus each day. Steve was still a very practicing Catholic, even though he related that the Church had thrown him out of seminary when he lost his eyesight. We used to have very spirited conversations each morning about the Catholic view of abortion and other hot topics. Continued...

But our disagreements never got in the way of the friendship. I’m sorry I have lost contact with him through the years since I left Temple University’s administration, but I always think fondly of him. (In searching his name, I discovered Steve Mikochik is now faculty emeritus at Temple and is a visiting professor at Ave Maria School of Law in Florida.)

I know Steve could have enlightened me about the Catholic Church’s former system of banning movies. The Catholic Legion of Decency is no longer in existence under that name, but there is still a Catholic film rating system from the Catholic News Service (CNS). “Spotlight” is rated A III: suitable for adults only.

But the CNS review starts with this; “The clergy abuse-themed drama ‘Spotlight’ is a movie no Catholic will want to see. Whether it’s a film many mature Catholics ought to see is a different question entirely.”

So I will just heartily recommend “Spotlight” as a must-see film, much like “All the President’s Men,” the expose of Watergate and the Washington Post investigative reporters who brought down President Nixon.

And since the calendar pages are clean for 2016, let’s hope we can fill them with news of the end of all war and all terrorism — and the election of our first woman President.

Bonnie Squires is a communications consultant who writes weekly for MAIN LINE MEDIA NEWS and can be reached at www.bonniesquires.com. She hosts the weekly WWDB-AM radio show, “The Marketing of Business,” as well as the weekly “BONNIE’S BEAT” TV interview show at Radnor Studio 21 and Lower Merion-Narberth TV.