For The Editor Behind The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Investigation, Colorado’s Clergy Abuse Report Is ‘Eerily Similar’

DENVER (CO)
Colorado Public Radio

Nov. 3, 2019

By Avery Lill

It’s a group no one wants to be a part of: communities scarred by abuse in Catholic Churches.

With the Attorney General’s office’s report, Colorado now has at least a partial accounting of child sexual abuse in the state’s three dioceses. The independent inquiry revealed that priests abused, at minimum, 166 children in Colorado over 70 years.

The Centennial State is far from the first community that has already been down this path.

A prominent one is Boston, where in 2002, the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigation revealed widespread sexual abuse of children by priests in the Archdiocese of Boston and an ensuing cover-up by church leaders.

Walter Robinson led that coverage as the Spotlight team’s editor. The stories drew national attention and won the paper a Pulitzer. The 2015 movie about the reporting, “Spotlight,” won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.

When Robinson spoke to Colorado Matters, he said Colorado’s special report was “eerily similar” to inquiries in Massachusetts and other states.

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