Spotlight Misses a Few Major Spots

There has been a plethora of films, documentaries, TV-Dramas, let alone news reports over the past 14 years regarding the sex abuse scandal within the Catholic Church. Spotlight is another which adds nothing really new and revelatory. However, it does look at the scandal from another angle which is deserving of credit where credit is due, but also criticism where it is due.

The film stars some decent performances by Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Brian d'Arcy James, Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci, Liev Schreiber, and Billy Crudup. Spotlight is directed by Thomas McCarthy and written by McCarthy and Josh Singer. The novel, intriguing, and gripping part of the film is that its about The Boston Globe's "Spotlight" team, the oldest continuously operating newspaper investigative unit in the United States, and their coverage of the Massachusetts Catholic sex abuse scandal, for which The Globe won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Here is where the filmmakers indeed deserve credit.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston puts it best when he said Spotlight illustrates how the newspaper’s reports prompted the church "to deal with what was shameful and hidden." A Commentary on Vatican Radio, an official radio service of the Vatican, described Spotlight as "honest" and "compelling." In the commentator's view, the film shows that the Globe reporters exercised "their most pure vocation" as journalists.

However, where Spotlight neutralizes, if not loses, that credit is when it tries to shine its light on the Catholic Church’s discipline of priestly celibacy as the cause for the sexual abuse “epidemic.” The film “spotlights” an absurd claim made by former priest, Dr. Richard Sipe, who says that only 50% of priests are living the celibacy requirement and though “most are having sex with adults, it (celibacy requirement) fosters an environment that creates secrecy and even protects pedophiles.”

This claim gets at the crux of how the Writer, Thomas McCarthy, misses a major opportunity for Hollywood to help make a significant and positive impact on addressing the sexual abuse of children in our world culture today. It is quite evident from McCarthy’s interview in Variety Magazine that he is concerned about the sexual abuse of children. In Spotlight, McCarthy spends a great deal of time and energy focusing on just one offending institution (which already has been under the microscope for some 14 years) and furthermore, ignorantly places his “spotlight” on the church’s celibacy requirement as the main instrument of crime. This is quite short sighted, while the problem at hand in our global society is that child sexual abuse is still real today with similar cover ups and bears no one type of institution, religion, race, individual, or other that signifies the reasons behind the abused and the abusers.

Cases in point, the Jerry Sandusky and Penn State Football child sex abuse scandal. Then there is the sex abuse expose of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) where there were nearly 2,000 reported cases of abuse within the BSA prior to 1994. J.L. Tarr, a Chief Scout Executive in the 1980s, said regarding sexual assault cases against Scout leaders across all 50 states: “That’s been an issue since the Boy Scouts began.” Now, let’s go across the globe. Western soldiers fighting in Afghanistan were told to look the other way as young boys are sodomized by Muslim soldiers, interpreters and war lords. This was passed off as a ‘cultural difference.’ This “cultural difference’ has been around for some 1000 years. It is part of an age-old practice known to be common throughout many parts of the Arab/Muslim world where young boys are kept as sex slaves by wealthy and powerful patrons. The practice, called “bacha bazi” — literally “boy play.” And then, there is the case of an Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, NY that has had to face up to claims of child sex abuse after 83 men and two women were arrested. An initiative was set up to encourage victims to come forward despite pressure from the close-knit religious society to hush up the crimes. Some 117 male and female victims have approached authorities since 2006. 89 of the accusers are under the age of 17. And then, there is Hollywood itself when it comes to the sexualization of children – It is hard to dismiss the harsh criticism as puritanism over the scandalous exploitation of the underage Miley Cyrus Photo Shoot in a 2008 issue of Variety Magazine. Much of the Hollywood community either said nothing or claimed it as “art.”

The problem here is not so much Penn State, the Boy Scouts of American, Arab/Muslims, Orthodox Jews, or Hollywood - Rather its something larger in the bone and marrow of our world culture whose inordinate sexual appetites preys on innocent children. Numerous studies have estimated that about 1 in 3 boys and over that number of girls suffer some form of molestation by an adult during their childhood and adolescence, with the majority of child sexual abuse occurring within the setting of an extended family.

Based on this reality, it is disappointing that McCarthy is motivated to expend resources and energy to make Spotlight as a means to hammer only on the Catholic Church (and maybe a bit on the journalists who failed to act quickly enough). McCarthy’s interview in Variety Magazine says in reference to the Catholic Church, “Kids lives, welfare, are still very much at stake. This problem is not going away – You don’t get over a problem that has existed for 100s of years in just 10 years.”

McCarthy misses to also shine his “spotlight” (at least at the end credits) on how the Catholic Church (above most institutions) has implemented programs since the scandal broke in 2001 to protect children under its care. In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the program is called “Safeguard the Children.” This program has implemented child protecting measures such as hiring former FBI Agents to do background checks, including fingerprinting, of all priests, staff, and volunteers who have any ministry contact with children. All within Church ministry and staff who have contact with children are required to take training classes in how to identify and report child sexual abuse, called Virtus: Protecting God’s Children. The U.S. Bishops have implemented a “Zero Tolerance” policy whereby under any credible accusation of child abuse, the priests, staff, or lay person affiliated with the Catholic Church is removed from their position immediately until further investigation and findings of guilt or innocence. Further, many dioceses, including the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Chicago have released confidential and sensitive files of accused priest cases to the public.

Does the Catholic Church still have work to do? Absolutely! Indeed, keep that spotlight glaring into the Church worldwide. One credible case of child sexual abuse is too much – and the cry for justice from all victims must be heard and addressed – [Ps. 17] “O God, hear my cry for justice!

Listen to my prayer… Rescue me, as You rescue all who turn to You for help.” But the Catholic Church is just the “tip of the iceberg” of a far greater corruption of child sexual abuse festering in the institutions and “trusted” communities in our global society.

Filmmakers have an abundant means to influence large audiences and transpire great messages that promote understanding, awareness, and healing in our world to people of every culture. If eradicating this heartbreaking epidemic of child sexual abuse is of the true essence here, then the “spotlights” need to be shined in many others areas where child sexual abuse runs rampant and yet still remains in the dark today.

Spotlight no doubt shines a noteworthy light on the Boston Globe journalists’ accomplishments to expose the child sex abuse scandal within the Catholic Church. However, McCarthy’s Spotlight misses a “few major spots” in addressing the issue of child sexual abuse among us today, as even Mitchell Garabedian, a child abuse victim attorney, alludes to in the film, “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.” That village is not just the Catholic Church, but the world culture all children live in. Together though, including the Boy Scouts, Arab/Muslims, Orthodox Jews, the Catholic Church, Hollywood, and many others, we can all work to make significant strides to protect children from abuse.

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