#SPOTLIFE MOVIE CODE#

The day after the Academy Awards, L’Osservatore Romano made it quasi-official, praising Spotlight’s “compelling plot” and insisting that it is “not anti-Catholic,” but “manages to voice the shock and profound pain of the faithful confronting the discovering of these horrendous realities.” I watched Spotlight twice in November and was deeply impressed I included it in my top 10 films of 2015, as did Catholic News Service and a number of my friends and peers in the world of cinephiles of faith.

bishops’ film review office (now under the auspices of Catholic News Service) wrote a guarded but positive review, calling it a “generally accurate chronicle” offering “valuable insight into one of the darkest chapters in ecclesiastical history.”

#SPOTLIFE MOVIE CODE#

Malta’s Archbishop Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s former chief prosecutor of clerical sex abuse cases, told the Italian daily La Repubblica that “All bishops and cardinals must see this film, because they must understand that it is reporting that will save the Church, not ‘ omertà.’” ( Omertà is a term from Mafia culture meaning a code of silence and non-cooperation.) The festival’s SIGNIS jury (SIGNIS is the World Catholic Association for Communication) issued a statement calling Spotlight a “captivating film” that “calls the Catholic Church to be the moral leader it claims to be.” It began at the 2015 Venice Film Festival, where Spotlight screened out of competition. The film depicts the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative work of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team in 20 on mishandling of clerical sexual abuse of minors by the Boston Archdiocese under Cardinal Bernard Law. Spotlight, which won Best Picture at the 88th Academy Awards on Sunday, has been received very differently by Catholics. Similar takes appeared in other Catholic publications. bishops’ film review office called The Magdalene Sisters, which depicts abusive conditions in religious Irish institutions for “fallen women,” a “coarse fact-based but manipulative melodrama.” I had just begun at the National Catholic Register that year, and I wrote a cautious but severe review (with a follow-up piece a few years later) over which I still get occasional angry emails. When Peter Mullan’s The Magdalene Sisters won the Venice Film Festival’s top award in 2002, L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s semi-official newspaper, published a scathing piece calling it “an angry and rancorous provocation,” among other things. SDG Original source: National Catholic Register

Unlike some similarly themed films, this year’s Academy Award Best Picture winner has been well received by Catholic leaders and others. What’s Catholic response to Spotlight been like? Mostly positive, actually.

Spotlife movie