UNITED STATES
People
BY MIKE MILLER 02/05/2016
He no longer belongs to any sort of organized religion, but Phil Saviano, whose pivotal role in exposing the child sex abuse scandal within the Catholic Church is showcased in the Oscar-nominated film Spotlight, appears to have had something almost like divine intervention on his side.
For instance, if he hadn’t been flipping through The Boston Globe looking for last minute Christmas presents in December of 1992, he might have never stumbled across a report that the priest who raped him as a child was arrested for doing the same thing to two boys in New Mexico.
“That was my big life-changing moment because I was very much surprised and just stunned,” Saviano, 63, tells PEOPLE. “It was just sort of a one shot, fairly short story in the Globe, not even in the front section, I could’ve easily missed it. But I didn’t.”
The news of his abuser’s arrest could not have come at a more pivotal point in his life. At the time, Saviano had been diagnosed with AIDS and was not given long to live. But living so close to the edge of death finally gave him the courage to speak out about his abuse.
“The truth of the matter is that AIDS freed me up to do some things that I might not have had the courage otherwise to do, and going public about my abuse at the age of 40 is one of them,” he admits.
And if it weren’t for his seemingly fatal illness, Saviano believes the church would never have allowed him to take his settlement money – a measly $15,500 – without signing their customary nondisclosure agreement.
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