It was surprising to hear another religion that had tried to cover up shameful things about the church, this time being the catholic church and child molesting that they had tried to cover up.
After listening to the extra On The Media: Spotlight on "Spotlight" the movie, I was shocked I had never heard this about this occurrence in the Catholic and I had missed the news about the movie.
I'm not an avid movie-goer and plenty of people have told me they are going to give me a movification after they are shocked by the number of movies I haven't seen. I don't do this intentionally, I just generally don't have a lot of time too.
As for the article on the Catholic cover-up of child molestation, that was released way back in 2002. I was in 3rd grade and what 3 grader do you know that is concerned with what is going on in the world.
The most interesting thing said in this episode was when Sacha Pfeiffer, who worked for the spotlight team, said was because religion are private institutions by law they are not required to hand over records and they most likely are not going to. It is kind of a duhhhhh statement, but really an ah-ha moment for myself.
After some digging I finally found both parts of the original article.
Part 1: Church allowed abuse by priest for years
Part 2: Geoghan preferred preying on poorer children
Also a book written by the Spotlight.
I also learned found an interesting comparison while trying to find the two parts to the original articles that Boston is very catholic and like the Desert News for the LDS, they have the CRUX. I don't know if the Crux is owned by the catholic church like the LDS church owns Desert News, but the Crux seems to address a lot of problems within the catholic church. Makes me wonder even though they are covering all things catholic, should the job of these papers be to hold the private institutions accountable? Do they?
Going back to the focusing on the LDS church I tried to find topics there of that were controversial, like polgamy and the suicide rate after general conference. I found an explanation of the LDS church justifying use for polgamy and guidance for dealing with suicide, but it wasn't really the detail I was hoping to find.
The story on the Catholic church reminds me of the documentary "Prophet's Prey" that was shown earlier this year and just before "Spotlight" was released actually, that talked about the FLDS branching away from the LDS church and the awful things and corruption that was and is going on in our backyard of Colorado City.
Now, I am not discrediting the LDS from this film about the FDLS or would not even say the film is a reflection of what the LDS history with polgamy was like, but I think it is important to know the history of thereof. And I think it is important if you are LDS to know of the FLDS, because like it is derived from the LDS and call themselves the Fundamentalists of Latter-Day Saints.
There were two things that I took away from this podcast outside of the story.
One, having gone into this major with the curiosity of becoming a journalist, I like that fact that the Spotlight team stands for what journalism really should be as investigation. It is hard with pressure of technology to not scratch more then the surface for the sake of time and daily entertainment. I appreciate that the movie focuses on this aspect too instead of covering the story from maybe the perspectives of the victims.
"We also that it reminds people on how important investigative journalism is. You have to support this work. That means buying your newspaper, get a digital subscription, get home delivery, that's the revenue that helps us do what we do." -Pfeiffer
The second thing I took away and I commend Pfeiffer for was her example of civility. Despite the awful truth part of the Catholic church's history that she helped undercover she didn't discredit the church but she hoped that this story would only lead the church to hold itself more accountable.
"We certainly hope it keeps the church working hard to make sure this doesn't happen again."
-Pfeiffer
This is a movie I will definitely be making time for in the future to watch.
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