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Spotlight · written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy · 2015
Scene 41 of 143 · ≈ 5 min on screen · Act two
The Boston Globe's Spotlight team pries open the Catholic Church's decades-long cover-up of child abuse — one sealed record, one silenced victim at a time.
Robby's Spotlight team operates comfortably inside its own routine, prospecting a modest police-corruption story under a departing editor's cover.
Baron's outsider question exposes what the paper has never done: investigate whether Cardinal Law knowingly protected an abusive priest.
The team sets aside its own project and enters unfamiliar territory: survivor networks, a hostile plaintiff's lawyer, and a legal fight to unseal church records.
Marty arrives at Cardinal Law's massive Lake Street residence for a personal audience with the Cardinal.
Cardinal Law charms Marty with stories of his own newspaper past and offers his help, but reacts with surprise when Marty insists the paper must stand alone.
Alone in his car, Marty unwraps Law's parting gift to find a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, as Phil Saviano arrives at the Globe lobby carrying a box of files.
This scene
The entire team sits in Robby’s small sitting area facing PHIL SAVIANO. Phil is mid-40s, thin and twitchy. He’s got a medium sized BOX in front if him. He rifles through some papers on his lap.
SAVIANO
So am I the first survivor you’ve
talked to?
ROBBY
Yes, Phil. You are.
SAVIANO
Okay, well, first of all, let me say
thank you for having me in today. I
want you to know that you have the
full cooperation of my organization,
SNAP.
SACHA
How many members are there in your
organization, Phil?
SAVIANO
We had eleven at our last chapter
meeting. No ten. Karen just moved.
ROBBY
There was a woman in your group?
SAVIANO
Of course there was a woman. They
don’t discriminate, not when it
comes to abuse. And this has
nothing to do with being gay. What
this is, is priests using the collar
to rape kids. Kids. Boys and girls.
He reaches into a file, pulls a PHOTO of himself as a kid.
SAVIANO (CONT’D)
I was eleven. I was preyed upon by
Father David Holley in Worcester.
And I don’t mean prayed for. I mean
preyed upon. Are any of you
Catholic?
The whole team looks at each other. Good question.
MATT
I was raised Catholic but now I go
to my wife’s Presbyterian church.
SACHA
I’m lapsed but I go to church with
my grandmother sometimes.
ROBBY
It’s safe to say we were all raised
Catholic but now...
MIKE
Not so much.
SAVIANO
Okay. Well, let me tell you, when
you’re a poor kid from a poor
family, religion counts for a lot.
And when a priest pays attention to
you it’s a big deal. He asks you to
collect the hymnals or take out the
trash, you feel special. It’s like
God asking for help. And maybe it’s
a little weird when he tells you a
dirty joke but now you got a secret
together so you go along. Then he
shows you a porno mag, and you go
along. And you go along, and you go
along, until one day he asks you to
jerk him off or give him a blow job.
And so you go along with that too.
Because you feel trapped. Because
he has groomed you. How do you say
no to God, right?
This lands.
SAVIANO (CONT’D)
See, it’s important to understand
that this is not just physical
abuse, it’s spiritual abuse too.
When priest does this to you, he
robs you of your faith.
SAVIANO (CONT’D)
So you reach for the bottle or the
needle or if those don’t work, you
jump off a bridge. That’s why we
call ourselves survivors.
The team stares, gobsmacked. Phil pulls a book from the box.
SAVIANO (CONT’D)
Have you read Jason Berry’s book?
He wrote about the Gauthe case in
Louisiana?
ROBBY SACHA
We’re not familiar. That’s G-U...
SAVIANO (CONT’D)
G-A-U-T-H-E. And talk to Richard
Sipe. He worked in one of the
Church’s ‘treatment’ centers, he’s
an ex-priest, married a nun.
(pulling out a file)
Here, this is his testimony from the
Kos case.
SACHA
Phil, what’s a treatment center?
SAVIANO
It’s where they send priests when
they get caught. This is all right
here in the box, I sent it all to
you guys five years ago.
ROBBY
To the Globe? Who’d you send it to?
SAVIANO
I don’t wanna say who, but they said
they weren’t interested.
MATT
But Phil, we did run a couple of
stories on you. I saw them in the
clips.
SAVIANO
Yeah but to be completely frank, it
wasn’t enough!
Robby and Mike trade a look as Phil takes a PACKET out of the box overflowing with tattered clips, articles and data CDs.
SAVIANO (CONT’D)
You guys gotta understand, this is
big. It’s not just Boston, it’s the
whole country, the whole world. And
it goes right up to the Vatican.
MIKE
Do you have any proof of that, Phil?
SAVIANO
No, not yet, but think about it,
there are so many of them, how else
could they have hidden it for so
long?
MIKE
So many what?
SAVIANO
Priests! I know of thirteen right
here in Boston.
ROBBY
You know of thirteen priests who
have molested children in Boston?
SAVIANO
Yeah. Why do you keep repeating
everything I say?
ROBBY
I just like to clarify things.
SAVIANO
Maybe you should have clarified it
five years ago when I sent you all
this stuff! It’s all right here.
Phil’s sudden anger catches the room off guard. He stares at the box, tries to pull himself together.
SAVIANO (CONT’D)
May I use your bathroom?
MATT
Yeah. Sure, Phil. Come on.
Matt leads Phil out. A beat. Mike quickly starts shuffling through the packet.
SACHA
What do you think?
ROBBY
He’s got an agenda, that’s for sure.
MIKE SACHA
You think? He’s obviously been through a
lot.
SACHA
But he’s smart and if he’s right
about thirteen priests...
ROBBY
Might be a big ‘if’ with this guy.
(then to Sacha)
Run background on him and follow up
with some of the other survivors in
his group.
MIKE
I’ll track down this ex-priest Sipe.
ROBBY
Okay. But stay on Garabedian,
that’s more important.
MIKE
Garabedian’s a pain in the ass.
ROBBY
You can be a pain in the ass,
Michael.