UNITED STATES
Religion News Service
Cathy Lynn Grossman | November 23, 2015
WASHINGTON (RNS) Viewers came to watch “Spotlight” for its dramatic themes: clergy sex abuse and power, God and media. Or they came for its top-flight cast and Oscar buzz.
Or they came because friends said it was a good movie. Said one millennial: “Mom said it was important.”
The retelling of The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning expose of the clergy abuse scandal in Boston delivered on those expectations during a workweek afternoon viewing at the downtown Cineplex.
But it seems unlikely that the film, which opened to hundreds of theaters Friday (Nov. 20), will revive the general public rage and disgust with predatory priests and the church that hid them as the Globe’s stories did in 2002.
The idea that abuse could be rampant — yet buried from the bleach of public scrutiny — is not so surprising anymore, said Richard Boudreau, 67, who was once an altar boy and a graduate of a Jesuit high school.
A decade after the Globe expose when the Catholic scandal was at full boil, allegations that Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky abused children came to light. And so did allegations that university officials and others were aware of his actions but failed to protect youth in Sandusky’s nonprofit program.
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