PENNSYLVANIA
New Castle News
When I was in high school, my first thought of a career was not priesthood or ministry, but journalism. I wanted to become a writer. I seriously considered going to a university which had a nationally known journalism school.
Obviously, I decided against that path, which is why I am writing in the New Castle News, and not for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel or the Los Angeles Times.
That long-ago ambition came back to me when I went to see “Spotlight.” This movie (released in November) details the work of four investigative reporters for the Boston Globe as they pursue the story of Catholic priests who abused children in the Archdiocese of Boston. We see their initial lack of understanding of the scope of the scandal, their frustration in interviewing victims reluctant to speak out, their editors’ skepticism of the project and their ultimate vindication. Every newspaper review of “Spotlight” that I have read says that director Tom McCarthy and his actors accurately and vividly portray the life of contemporary reporters in gritty detail. “Spotlight” won the Oscar for Best Picture of 2015.
But this is not just a movie about writing newspaper stories. It is also the fact-based retelling of one important part of the largest scandal in the Catholic Church in the past 100 years. Going back decades, some priests harmed children (about 2 to 3 percent of the total number of priests). When they did, and the victims’ parents complained, these priests were moved from parish to parish to avoid scrutiny. Through the intervention of their bishops, most of these priests escaped punishment from the criminal justice system. “Spotlight” focuses on the Archdiocese of Boston in the years 2000-2002.
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