Several nights ago, I watched the film Spotlight, which was riveting and all around excellent. The movie earned its well-deserved Academy awards in Best Picture and Best Screen Play categories. Though I followed the story of child abuse by priests in the Archdiocese of Boston in the newspaper from the beginning, the story as told from the point of view of the newspaper reporters and editors kept me in full suspense mode throughout. I'd be hard put to single out particular actors for fine performances, because the principals were all outstanding.The child abuse scandals in Louisiana broke earlier than the Boston scandal, but there was only spotty coverage by the national media. South Louisiana is heavily Roman Catholic, and I now realize how courageous the reporters and editors in the local newspapers, the Daily Comet and the Houma Courier, were in publishing their stories. No doubt, they took a great deal of heat from diocesan leaders and lawyers at the time.
The Catholic Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux is small, and I knew some of the people involved. When I learned of the child abuse, the hush money paid to victims, and the attempts to cover up by supposedly moral and psychologically sound leaders, I left the church at age 60. Though my alliance with the church had been uneasy for quite a while, my decision to completely break the ties was difficult.
Night before last, I watched Spotlight again before I sent the DVD back to Netflix. I wanted to enjoy the fine artistry on display in the film without being overwhelmed by suspense. Upon seeing the movie the second time, I remembered the light-bulb moment when, after hearing the stories about more than one priest in more than one diocese in Louisiana, I concluded that the abusive priests didn't simply slip through the cracks, but that the actual policy of the church was to shift abusive priests from parish to parish, perhaps after a leave of absence, where the abusive behavior continued in their new placements.
