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Spotlight · written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy · 2015
Scene 48 of 143 · ≈ 1 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.
Sacha meets nervous victim Joe Crowley at a South End cafe as he settles in and agrees to let her take notes.
In Garabedian's conference room, Mike interviews victim Patrick McSorley, who describes Geoghan targeting him after his father's suicide and his mother's breakdown.
Crowley tells Sacha that Sister Barbara introduced him to Father Shanley, who used a mobile with sexual words to test whether he was gay before molesting him during a game of strip poker.
This scene
Mike sits with McSorley and Garabedian.
PATRICK MCSORLEY
Geoghan shows up and my mom, she’s
thrilled. I mean this was like God
showing up, you know?
MIKE
Sure. So what happened then?
PATRICK MCSORLEY
You really want to hear this shit?
MIKE
Yeah, Patrick. I do.
Patrick is struggling a bit. But he continues.
PATRICK MCSORLEY
He offers to take me to get ice
cream. He’s a priest, I’m a kid, so
I go.
MIKE
Sure.
PATRICK MCSORLEY
So we’re driving home and he starts
patting my leg and then... his hand
just slides up and he grabs my dick.
I just froze up, I was fucking
petrified. I couldn’t move. I
didn’t know what to do, I was just a
little kid.
(then)
I never even touched my freakin’ ice
cream, it just melted down my arm.
MIKE
Did you see him again after that?
PATRICK MCSORLEY
Yeah.
GARABEDIAN
Alright, it’s good. Let’s stop
there for now...
McSorley stares down at his hands. Trembling. Then he itches his arm. This time, Mike notes the HEROIN TRACKS.