"Spotlight" Revelations Transformed Abuse Group
By Bill White
vid Clohessy, national director for the group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, likes to tell the story of the struggling early days of his organization — and when that changed, dramatically. Clohessy, a victim of sexual abuse by a priest for about four years starting when he was 11 or 12, began volunteering for the support, information and advocacy group SNAP in the early '90s. But as you saw if you've watched the Oscar-contending movie "Spotlight," SNAP had a terrible time generating interest in the things it knew about child sexual abuse by priests and the way cases were covered up, in Boston and all over the country. The movie dramatizes the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation that exposed widespread child sexual abuse by Boston area priests and the massive coverup that allowed it to continue. It also depicted the frustration of New England SNAP founder/leader Phil Saviano, who had had no success in interesting the Globe in this larger story despite occasional individual reports of abuse by priests. Clohessy said he had the same conversation every December with SNAP founder and fellow priest abuse survivor Barbara Blaine as they reviewed another frustrating year. "It went like this," he said. "'This is going nowhere. None of this will ever see the light of day. Why don't we pack it up?'" So it was in December 2001, just before the Globe story broke in early 2002. "I said to Barbara, 'Well, these folks at the Boston Globe say they're doing a big investigation. Let's try it for one more year. "Just a couple of weeks later, we felt like geniuses for not shutting the whole thing down." Things instantly changed. "The shortest way I can describe what happened," he said, "is I can say virtually overnight, we went from a group that couldn't get its phone calls returned to being a group that couldn't return its phone calls." He said there were days in 2002 and 2003 when he cleared his voice mail before he went to bed, turned the phone off so he could get some sleep, and woke up in the morning to a full voice mailbox. Victims, whistle blowers, concerned Catholics, prosecutors, journalists suddenly were clamoring to tell and pursue these stories and express their concerns. Until then, there would be what he called "mini-eruptions" over a particular case, always written off as one bad apple, an aberration. The idea that there was a broad institutional problem seemed inconceivable, one reason why people like Saviano were written off as cranks. The revelations about Boston sparked investigations in other cities across the country, including Philadelphia, where the abuse and systematic coverup were laid out in a horrific 2005 grand jury report and a 2011 follow-up. "Obviously," Clohessy said, "the pace has slowed considerably. But I'm still shocked at how much remains hidden, how many more victims are even now coming forward, how many new cases there are." I touched base with Amy Hill of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, who told me they haven't received many inquiries about "Spotlight." "We welcome anything that raises awareness around this important, painful issue," she responded. "Abuse thrives in silence and secrecy, as this film illustrates. So many sectors of society can learn from this difficult lesson. "It's important that survivors know they can come forward, that the Church will listen compassionately, act appropriately and work toward healing." The gestation period for secrets like these can last for decades. Robert Corby, an 80-year-old Bethlehem man who as a fatherless 11-year-old altar boy says he was molested by a priest, told no one until 2002, when the Globe's revelations emboldened him to finally open up. He said his wife died without knowing the real story behind his struggles with intimacy and other problems, something he deeply regrets. I called Corby last week to get his reaction to "Spotlight." Rather sheepishly, he told me he made it as far as the front door of the theater — but turned around and left. "I wanted to see it," he said, "but every time I went to do it, I got cold feet. I thought, 'Gee, is it going to make me worse than I am?' I'm struggling with it now." David Clohessy? He's seen it eight times. "At some point," he told me, recalling those early days, "somebody told us about a wonderful quote from Mahatma Gandhi. 'First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win." So is it time for a victory lap? He acknowledges that children are more apt to tell now, and their parents are more likely to believe them. Prosecutors are more likely to prosecute. All that gives him hope. But whatever the church is saying publicly — and Pope Francis has spoken about this subject in an encouraging way — Clohessy remains skeptical about real change in the culture that made these horrors possible, in part because the leaders who cover these crimes up still aren't being punished beyond reassigning them or letting them voluntarily step down. "That's the missing piece," he said. So the fight continues. "Then you win?" Maybe someday. bill.white@mcall.com 610-820-6105 Bill White's commentary appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays
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