UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody
Posted on March 5, 2016 by Betty Clermont
In accepting the Academy Award for Best Picture, producer Michael Sugar told the world: “This film gave a voice to survivors, and this Oscar amplifies that voice, which we hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican. Pope Francis, it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith.”
Earlier that day, Spotlight’s Mark Ruffalo, nominated for Best Supporting Actor, as well as Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer, who together won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, attended a protest outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels in downtown Los Angeles. They were there to support members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
‘What better way to start the day?’” said McCarthy who called up Ruffalo and Singer that morning to join him. Singer added: “We’re trying to put a little more pressure on the Church to hold bishops accountable, have a little more transparency and do a better job protecting kids.”
Later on the red carpet, Ruffalo told Reuters they were “protesting the continued lack of transparency of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican and most of the archdioceses here in the United States on sexual abuse. There are 2,800 priests who they know are absolute sexual predators whose names have still not been released here in the United States. [There are] thousands more throughout the United States and the Vatican today is still dragging its feet on making any real reforms. So we were there today to try to bring justice closer to the hands of these poor people, this horrible thing that’s happened to these people.
Pope Francis has provided only lip-service, a promise of a still-non-existent tribunal, and a commission to solve problems someday in the future which have already been addressed and remedied by the survivors, their advocates and civil authorities. The only action taken so far by the commission has been to boot out survivor Peter Saunders for being too vocal.
“On child abuse, there is no sincerity on Francis’ side,” Saunders said later.
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