UNITED STATES
David O’Brien

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David O’Brien is Loyola Professor of Catholic Studies Emeritus, College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.

“Spotlight” brings well-deserved honor to the Boston Globe editors and reporters who in 2002 broke open the crimes of sex abuse by Boston priests and cover-ups by Boston’s Archbishop. The issue of clerical sex abuse first surfaced with a 1984 case in Louisiana. Slowly victims and a handful of victim advocates exposed one after another local case until the Globe exploded the issue. In the months that followed investigative reporters, district attorneys and grand juries, and victims and their attorneys, forced the release of evidence of horrific crimes and cover-ups across the country. As the recent resignations of bishops in Kansas City and St Paul make clear, that process of exposure, disgrace, delayed financial and criminal accountability, and…