The ‘Spotlight’ That Should Have Killed the Church — But Didn’t

UNITED STATES
Pax Culturati

by Kate O’Hare

The other night, I went to a screening of the new movie “Spotlight,” which details the investigation by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team into the priest sex-abuse scandal and cover-up in Boston, first published in January 2002.

Aside from a couple of pointed efforts to deflect the conversation away from whatever role homosexuality played in this – not surprising, considering our current political climate – the film, which opens in selected theaters on Friday, Nov. 6, was clear-eyed, not sensationalistic, and balanced. It not only hammered the Church (and rightfully so) for its role in the scandals but also the Globe and other city institutions that downplayed the reality of the situation or turned a blind eye.

If you’re of a weak constitution, or just want to think somebody was out to get an otherwise innocent Church, this isn’t the movie for you. Our priests and bishops not only did wrong, some of them did evil. Too many have escaped the legal penalties for what they did, but be assured, their real Boss missed nothing that was done, and there will be a reckoning for each and every one, whether they wore clerical blacks or a red cap.

As a Catholic revert who only came back to the full-time practice of the Faith after the scandals, my understanding that this is a general sin of mankind, not a particular sin of Catholics, was a great help.

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