UNITED STATES
Labyrinthine Mind
Fr. Pablo
Several weeks ago I attended a screening of the movie Spotlight, a movie about the investigative reporting which led to the uncovering of the sex abuse cover up in Boston thirteen years ago. This same movie was a nominee last night for a Golden Globe Award for the best drama motion picture.
The movie was painful to watch. It vividly portrayed the unfathomable suffering of the sex abuse victims, the absolute failure of church leaders in dealing with and reporting predator priests, the outrage rightfully expressed by those uncovering the abuse, and finally the heartbreak of faithful believers whose faith in Jesus Christ was shaken and oftentimes crushed by the criminal behavior of priests and bishops.
Certainly this is not a Friday night, dinner-and-a-date type of movie. Spotlight, named after The Boston Globe’s team which led the investigation, slowly unravels a story revealing the inner workings of the newspaper. The movie is not only about the sex abuse scandal of Boston, but is very much also about The Boston Globe. The movie not only places responsibility on the Catholic Church for the abuse cover up, but on the whole community. A line in the movie that points to this is “if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.” The movie shows how The Boston Globe itself had known about the abuse years before, but had not reported it effectively. Lawyers, parents, and prominent members of society had all known, and nobody had taken steps to weed it out.
I once heard that “getting caught” is an expression of God’s mercy since “getting caught” allows for repentance and a change in behavior. If a person does not get caught, the sin continues and the person’s soul remains in peril. This simple principle applies to what has happened to the Catholic Church in the United States. Disgracefully for a period of time, a number of priests abused children and their superiors did not respond as required by law. Now that the abuse has come to the light, the Catholic Church has been able to repent and change its behavior.
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