UNITED STATES
Washington Post
By Christopher White November 13
A new film serves as a painful reminder of one of the darkest periods in Catholic Church history, where more than 200 priests and religious were accused of abusing minors and were reassigned in reshuffled in a cover-up.
“Spotlight,” which opened in theaters last weekend, chronicles the Boston Globe’s groundbreaking coverage of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Archdiocese of Boston that would go on to win the paper a Pulitzer Prize in 2003. The film’s retelling of these events may very win its filmmakers Academy Awards.
Reflecting on the 10-year anniversary of the Globe’s revelations, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley said that “the media helped make our Church safer for children by raising up the issue of clergy sexual abuse and forcing us to deal with it.” (Editor’s note: The Globe’s editor at the time was Martin Baron, now executive editor of The Washington Post) …
After his meeting in Philadelphia David Clohessy, spokesman for the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priest (SNAP) said, “Is a child anywhere on Earth safer now that a pope, for maybe the seventh or eighth time or ninth time, has briefly chatted with abuse victims? No.”
But as “Spotlight” reminds us, perhaps one of the greatest lessons the church has learned is that in order for the institution to understand the full devastation of the clergy abuse crisis, we must listen to the stories of those most affected, tell them, and ultimately, repent and reform. Francis knows that PR efforts will do the church no favors. Only a change in practice will ensure that predatory priests are a thing of the past.
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