PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune-Review
June 4, 2018
By Ralph R. Ireland
A high school acquaintance from years ago recently told me about an incident in her family that raised concerns about sexual abuse.
Her son played ball on a traveling team. On one trip he came home a day early. The following is a close approximation of the conversation that reportedly transpired.
“You’re home early.”
“Yes, luckily. Tonight was my turn to sleep with Father.”
A sophomoric joke? Perhaps not if you’ve been paying attention.
“Spotlight,” an Oscar-winning 2015 film co-written and directed by Tom McCarthy, tells the real-life story of how an investigative team at The Boston Globe during the early 2000s researched and released numerous reports exposing sexual abuses in the Catholic Church, producing a series of fact-finding pieces that resulted in the Globe’s team becoming the 2003 Pulitzer Prize winner for public service.
“Spotlight” shows the pain and suffering of abuse victims as they tell their stories to Boston Globe reporters. Actor Neal Huff plays Phil Saviano, a Boston man who was abused by a priest when he was 11. In one scene, Huff holds a childhood photo. “When you’re a poor kid from a poor family and when a priest pays attention to you, it’s a big deal,” he states. “How do you say ‘no’ to God?”
How many in that situation, young and naïve, will say no to a priest who says he is only demonstrating a method to reduce sexual frustrations and save souls from aberrant cravings and sexual sinning?
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