Complicit all around
"If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one,” says Mitch Garabedian (Stanley Tucci), the attorney representing victims of pedophile priests in Spotlight. The film is a fictionalized account of how the Boston Globe’s investigative reporting team found widespread child molestation and cover-up in Boston’s Catholic archdiocese. The team won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service as a result of its work.
But in this film there are few heroes.
The victims, most of them underprivileged boys, were sexually abused by respected local priests. When the priests’ transgressions became known, their lawyers asked victims and their families to sign confidentiality agreements and offered only minimal financial compensation. The transactions were kept off the record, reducing the chance of public outcry and full disclosure.
