The film “Spotlight,” which won the Oscar for best picture Feb. 28, is a courageous movie that is not anti-Catholic, the Vatican daily “L’Osservatore Romano” said in two articles commenting on the Oscars.
Historian and journalist Lucetta Scaraffia, in an op-ed titled, “It is not an anti-Catholic film,” writes that “Spotlight” “is not anti-Catholic, as has been written, because it manages to voice the shock and profound pain of the faithful confronting the discovery of these horrendous events.”
The movie “does not delve into the long and tenacious battle that Joseph Ratzinger, as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and as Pope, undertook against pedophilia in the Church,” says Scaraffia, but “one film cannot tell all.
“The difficulties that Ratzinger met with do not but confirm the film’s theme, which is that too often ecclesiastical institutions have not known how to react with the necessary determination in the face of these crimes.”
“Not all monsters wear cassocks. Pedophilia does not necessarily arise from the vow of chastity. However, it has become clear that in the Church some are more preoccupied with the image of the institution than of the seriousness of the act,” the op-ed says.
“The fact that a call arose from the Oscar ceremony that Pope Francis fight this scourge should be seen as a positive sign: there is still trust in the institution; there is trust in a Pope who is continuing the cleaning begun by his predecessor, when still a cardinal. There is still trust in a faith that has at its heart the defence of victims, the protection of the innocent.”
In another article published in the same edition, L’Osservatore Romano’s movie reviewer Emilio Ranzato writes that “Spotlight” “is not an anti-Catholic film because Catholicism in itself is not even mentioned.”
“It runs the risk of being against the Church because it tends to generalize; but generalizations are inevitable when stories have to be told in just two hours,” he adds.
It “is without doubt a film with the courage of denouncing cases that need to be condemned without hesitation. And it does it in a detailed manner, grounded in an investigation that is both serious and credible.”
Christopher White, associate director of Catholic Voices U.S.A., said the story is incomplete without recognizing the reforms that followed in the Church. The movie is “a painful reminder of one of the darkest periods in Catholic Church history.”
“The newer reforms of accountability and transparency have made the Catholic Church among the leading institutions seeking to protect minors in the United States,” he said in a Feb. 29 essay for the “Washington Post.”
He cited Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s comment that the media “helped make our Church safer for children by raising up the issue of clergy sexual abuse and forcing us to deal with it.”
Among these safety measures are the Church’s “zero tolerance” policy for abusers, safe environment training and oversight, and mandatory background checks for any individual who has contact with minors.
“If a clergy member commits even one act of sexual abuse, he is immediately and permanently removed from ministry,” White said.
The Vatican has also restructured its proceedings regarding abuse charges, according to White.
In 2013, the Pope created the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to consider abuse cases. In June 2015, he created a special tribunal to discipline bishops who have been negligent in responding to abuse.
