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Spotlight · written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy · 2015
Scene 59 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.
Phil Saviano tells the team abuse this systemic isn't just physical, it's spiritual: 'if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.'
Walking the halls, Mike tells Robby that abusers target the same profile of vulnerable kid, describing Sipe's research on predatory patterns.
In the quiet pressroom, Mike tells Robby the Church smeared Sipe to discredit him, and Robby pushes Mike harder on Garabedian.
In the musty Globe basement, Robby, Mike and Matt discover the Church directories use euphemisms like 'sick leave' to mask priests pulled from parishes for abuse, confirming both Geoghan and Barrett's designations.
This scene
Sacha makes notes on a pad, a couple of files to one side.
SACHA (INTO PHONE)
Something’s not right here.
A COURT CLERK (MARK) walks over.
COURT CLERK (MARK)
There’s nothing on Shanley either,
Sacha.
SACHA
Okay, thanks.
(into phone)
We need to talk to MacLeish again.
ROBBY (OVER THE PHONE)
Really. Why?
SACHA (INTO PHONE)
There’s nothing here. There aren’t
any records...