· · ·
turning to page one
turning to page one
Spotlight · written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy · 2015
Scene 84 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.
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.
In a nearly empty Springfield courtroom, Mike watches the Globe's lawyer Albano argue for unsealing the Geoghan documents while a Herald reporter fishes for a quote.
This scene
Sacha downloads Robby. We see a large map of Boston on a desk, neighborhoods circled, writing and Post-its noting priests and victims.
SACHA
He didn’t try to hide it at all, he
had this odd rationalization for it.
Like it was normal to fool around
with little boys.
Nearby, we see Matt adding 3x5 victim cards to the wall. On the wall, 19 OF ROUGHLY 50 PRIESTS have cards. [N.B.: The priests (and victims) should be grouped by neighborhood].
SACHA (CONT’D)
I’d really like to go back. I think
he’d talk to us.
ROBBY
We will. Just not yet... Let’s
stay focused on victims right now.
MATT
Sacha, where’d they send Father
Talbot again?
SACHA
I think it was Cheverus? MATT Yeah, that’s right.
ROBBY
Father Talbot? From BC High?
SACHA
Yeah. You know him?
ROBBY
He was there when I was. We have a
victim?
MATT
Yeah. He lives in Providence.
Matt hands him the card. Robby stares down at the name.