AUSTRALIA
The Tablet (UK)
02 February 2016 | by Mark Brolly
The Australian bishops warned it makes uncomfortable viewing but is an opportunity to re-double efforts to support victims
Two Australian bishops have encouraged Catholics to see the film Spotlight, while warning it makes uncomfortable viewing.
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe of Perth said the film about The Boston Globe’s uncovering of sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Boston Archdiocese “is an opportunity for all of us in the Church to acknowledge the extent to which some of our brothers and sisters, including our leaders, have failed so badly, also here in Australia, to be the signs and bearers of God’s love and compassion they were expected, and appointed, to be.
“More importantly it can be an opportunity to re-double our efforts to assist those who have been the victims, and now survivors, of this terrible abuse and for whom the screening of this movie might well open up painful wounds. And it must reinforce our shared determination to make our parishes and other institutions and agencies places of absolute safety for our children and young people.”
Archbishop Costelloe said survivors had lost so much, “including perhaps your faith in the Church”. “Please do not give up on God.”
“The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continues its vital work of investigating this terrible scourge which is, to our great shame as a nation, far more widespread in institutional settings than any of us have previously realised,” he said.
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