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Spotlight · written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy · 2015
Scene 83 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.
The team pays the cost of the work — hearing survivor testimony, chasing MacLeish's stonewalling, and combing church directories for a hidden pattern of reassigned priests.
The directory search and Sipe's estimate deliver what they set out for: confirmation that the abuse spans dozens, then eighty-seven, priests across Boston.
Sacha pins fifteen priests' names to the growing corkboard while Sipe describes over the phone how abusers are emotionally arrested at a child's level.
A Hingham cop tells Sacha the police always knew about abusive priests but no one wanted to arrest a man of the collar, and a Jamaica Plain man confirms he knows Father Hurley and Father Gale by name, while another man angrily threatens Matt off his porch.
Sacha confronts retired priest Ronald Paquin at his door, and he casually admits to molesting boys while insisting he 'never got any pleasure' from it, until his sister slams the door on her.
This scene
Mike watching the Globe’s lawyer, JON ALBANO, 50s, white beard and moustache, present to JUDGE CONSTANCE SWEENEY, 40s.
JUDGE SWEENEY
Could you please clarify the Globe’s
position for me, Mr. Albano?
The courtroom’s empty, Garabedian at one desk, WILSON D. ROGERS JR., 60s, the Church’s lawyer, at another.
ALBANO
Yes, Judge Sweeney. Our argument to
make these documents public rests
mainly on 1st amendment grounds. We
also have a number of other relevant
arguments. After all, your honor,
this was a discretionary order...
JUDGE SWEENEY
Yes, Mr. Albano, it was made at the
Judge’s discretion...
Mike FIGHTS TEDIUM... until a REPORTER slides in next to him.
HERALD REPORTER (JOE QUIMBY)
Hey Mike.
MIKE
Hey Joe.
HERALD REPORTER
What’s a Spotlight reporter doing in
Springfield?
Mike doesn’t answer.
HERALD REPORTER (CONT’D)
Your man Albano’s sledding uphill.
You really think you have a shot at
winning this thing?
MIKE
You want me to comment for the
Herald?
QUIMBY
(writing on his pad)
“Globe reporter would not comment
but did not seem hopeful.”
Mike settles in. Gonna be a long day.