UNITED STATES
San Francisco Chronicle

Editorial

If Rome won’t, maybe Hollywood will. That would be getting the Catholic Church moving on clerical sex abuse, a scandal more than a decade old that’s drawing pledges to reform but pathetically thin results.

The movie “Spotlight,” which depicts the Boston Globe’s disclosures of pedophile priests and an archdiocese that hid the problem, should galvanize a global public that is impatient with Vatican foot-dragging. Determined digging by the paper overcame an evasive and insulated church that masked the scandal of dozens of clerics who preyed on children. The movie underscores the timely and focused worth of serious journalism up against a powerful interest.

An Oscar should come in handy for another reason. The church is essentially rolling with the punch of this scandal. It’s hearing out critics and abuse victims and paying out enormous settlements in some cases. But Rome has stopped short…