Spotlight
10/02/16 Filed in: Cinema
We saw Spotlight today, the story of how the Boston Globe Newspaper exposed widespread child abuse by Catholic priests.
A new editor at the paper picks up on the story and asks the Spotlight investigative team to take it on. The team is at first reluctant to put aside its existing investigation, but once on the case they find that what at first appeared to be a story about a few priests, unfolds to implicate the Catholic Church right up to the highest levels of authority.
The Church exercised a great influence in Boston, and the reporters faced a wall of silence and obstruction when trying to investigate the facts. However, gradually witnesses were prepared to talk, and hard work revealed evidence of the widespread nature of the abuse, this being contained in the annual registers of priests that showed how certain individuals were frequently moved around, implying a 'clean up' operation in the wake of their misdemeanours.
A new editor at the paper picks up on the story and asks the Spotlight investigative team to take it on. The team is at first reluctant to put aside its existing investigation, but once on the case they find that what at first appeared to be a story about a few priests, unfolds to implicate the Catholic Church right up to the highest levels of authority.
The Church exercised a great influence in Boston, and the reporters faced a wall of silence and obstruction when trying to investigate the facts. However, gradually witnesses were prepared to talk, and hard work revealed evidence of the widespread nature of the abuse, this being contained in the annual registers of priests that showed how certain individuals were frequently moved around, implying a 'clean up' operation in the wake of their misdemeanours.
But the Globe's new editor didn't want just to identify the rogue priests, he wanted to reveal the full extent of the involvement of the Church, which was going to be much more difficult. Documents that could incriminate the more senior clergy had been put under seal following a cover up action, but the reporters managed to gain access to some of these as a result of a bit of a legal slip up by the lawyers representing the Church, and ultimately all the documents were put back into the public domain.
Reminiscent of All The Presidents Men, this is a story of how dogged investigative journalism can succeed despite all the efforts of the establishment to block its progress. In this case it wasn't a president but the Catholic Church that was in the dock.
It's a well produced film that fills in the background of how the global nature of child abuse within the Catholic Church was exposed, the reverberations from which are still being felt today.
Reminiscent of All The Presidents Men, this is a story of how dogged investigative journalism can succeed despite all the efforts of the establishment to block its progress. In this case it wasn't a president but the Catholic Church that was in the dock.
It's a well produced film that fills in the background of how the global nature of child abuse within the Catholic Church was exposed, the reverberations from which are still being felt today.