“Where were we” — and where will we be next time?

UNITED STATES
Pleasanton Weekly

Uploaded: Dec 8, 2015

By Tom Cushing

I’m going to perturb more than my usual percentage of the readership (with any luck, the early-morning academic spammers, as well), and admit that I have next-to-no interest in the inescapable Star Wars phenomenon. They lost me at light sabers, for which I think Indiana Jones had the appropriate response in a contemporary galaxy, close to home. What’s the point of them? Maybe somebody can try to set me straight in the Comments – it’s considered a noble calling among some regulars.
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I did see ‘Spotlight’ recently – a thoughtful film about a difficult topic, that sticks with you long beyond the credit roll. (Warning — ahead there be spoilers.) It concerns the Boston Globe’s semi-recent investigation of child abuse by some priests in the Boston Arch-diocese.* Lest I now lose the loyally Catholic fraction of any remaining readers, this is not an anti-religion screed. It’s bigger than that. This blog, and the movie writ large, are about institutions and their inherent capacity to abuse our trust.

All-but-one of ‘Spotlight’s’ protagonists, the new Editor from out-of-town, are Catholic-raised; they are in various stages of lapse, but the Church permeates their identities – including loved ones, schools, their marriages, etc. As leaders in the community, they partake of lavish and imposing Church charity events, and rub elbows there with the city’s elite.

The Church is foundational, with influences in every corner of every element of the community. The incumbent Cardinal (Bernard Law) suggests to the new editor in an early introduction that Bostonians are well-served when his organization and The Globe work together. The newspaperman wisely demurs. The Church does much good, and is so deeply woven into the fabric that no one can conceive of the predatory wrongdoing that was also one of its darkest traditions.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.