Response to Spotlight (2015)

The Film 

Spotlight is a movie about the Boston Globe's special investigation group named Spotlight that 'uncovered' a systemic cover up within the Catholic church of child molestation done by priests.

The broad facts I discuss are from the movie, so maybe they're not > 50% true. For what that's worth, the movie strives for historical accuracy, and the facts do seem very realistic.

Uncovering a well-known secret

I don't feel the Globe really found out a secret. Many people knew about the crimes before the group of four Globe reporters started their investigation. Victims, family, and prominent members of church and government chose to bury the disgrace rather than speak out. Victims were pressured to silence by other parishioners, by the clergy, and lawyers. Law enforcement, and newspapers assisted by keeping hush.

The newspapers were among the many organizations that knew the extent of the child abuse, but in the past chose not to run the story. Yes, this younger team of reporters may not have realized what was going on, but as a larger organization the Globe had been handed the smoking gun years ago: names and accounts of the victims, letters to the cardinal about the offending priests. Instead of writing the story then and there, exposing the widespread child abuse and tolerance by the church, the Globe played down the crimes as isolated allegations without follow-up and played its own role in burying the truth.

The greater significance of the story was that the Globe finally got around to publishing what large number of victims, priests, families already knew about the church. That it was finally out in the open.

Mistrust

It wasn't so much that people hadn't said anything. It was they tried to in the past and were hushed. So some who attempted to be whistle blowers refused to cooperate a second time, because they were disillusioned and mistrustful, refusing to be led on and betrayed again. Some became complicit with the cover-up, out of self-guilt or resignation that the corruption was irremovable. They resigned that 'the world is what it is', they switched to the winning team, and their hands wound up dirty too.

Yes, there were some who did not want to talk about the crimes for personal reasons from the start. Some wanted to preserve the good image of their community, their faith, and protect their loved ones from shame. But because the heads of the public institutions conspired to make the investigation vanish, personal silence was allowed to persist.

The Cast

Great acting all 'round. I especially like the character Mike portrayed by Mark Ruffalo, a kind of up-and-at-em, dopey but determined, go-getter newspaper reporter. Respect also goes to the quirky and unfriendly lawyer character Garabedian portrayed by Stanley Tucci, who reveals himself to be a compassionate and noble hero.

Crime and Accomplices

In one scene, Garabedian delivers two ideas I want to present/discuss.

First idea: an outsider has perspective that the member of a group does not. He is more inclined to speak out and do the right thing.

The second idea: an individual commits crime, but a crime going unpunished requires the complicit cooperation of an entire community. Are the bystanders any better than the criminal? One does the deed itself, the other cultivates a corrupt environment that allows crimes to propagate.

[The 'good guy' lawyer GARABEDIAN shares a thought with Boston Globe newspaper reporter MIKE about the child molestation cases against Catholic priests.]

GARABEDIAN
Your new editor, he’s a Jew right?

MIKE
Uh, that’s right.

GARABEDIAN
He comes in, suddenly everybody is interested in the Church. 
You know why? Because it takes an outsider.
Like me. I’m Armenian. 
How many Armenians do you know in Boston? 

MIKE
Steve Kurkjian, works at the Globe.

GARABEDIAN
That’s two! You should get a prize or something.
What are you, Italian?

MIKE
Portuguese.

GARABEDIAN
From where?

MIKE
East Boston.

GARABEDIAN
You don’t sound like it.

Mike shrugs. Garabedian shakes his head, chuckles.

GARABEDIAN (CONT’D)
This city, these people, making the rest of us feel like we don’t belong. 
But they’re no better than us.
Look how they treat their children.
(wiping his mouth)
Mark my words, Mr. Rezendes,
if it takes a village to raise a child,
it takes a village to abuse one.

Garabedian eats. Mike ponders. Oddly moved.

source: full script

Innocence

There is an incestuous relationship between the Church, the Press, the Law, and their victims.

What is the greater crime? The priest who molested eleven children or the community that allowed 87 priests to molest thousands of poor, at-risk children.

My opinion is to be innocent of crime, one cannot tolerate it. To resist the actions of others who violate your ethics, not to rationalize that 'Because I wasn't the one who did these awful things, it's okay that I looked away from it when it went on'.

To be innocent of crime, you must do more than not commit the crime. You must actively oppose it.

Tolerance and an appeal to comparative ethics

We ought to tolerate each others' cosmetic differences in racial appearance, cultural preferences, and varying natural abilities. But immorality is not a matter of opinion or preferring vanilla over chocolate.

Bullshit Western Philosophy talks about relative vs absolute moral ethics, but this case is not a matter of cultural difference or even Utility (the duplicitous persuasion that 'Catholic church does a lot of good for people, and people need their faith, don't let a few rotten apples ruin it for everyone').

It's 40 year old men in a position of social and spiritual dominance, taking advantage of vulnerable children in poverty by a perversion of the morals and scripture for their sexual and psychological gratification. And the rest of the organization covering for it, because they don't want these disgraces diminishing the power they have through the Church.

An aside

There's no Universality or Cultural claim to that statement. The wrong is there no matter how you spin it. Besides, relative vs universal morality is a false dichotomy anyways. It wants to say either that there is no absolute truth, or that there is no flexibility in principles. That's like saying, either x = 4 solves every algebraic equation or there is no absolute truth. Each situation has its objective and logical moral model. There may be more than one, but they can't contradict and both be correct as relative morality claims is possible. They need to agree on the observable data. But we can't expect the same model to apply to every situation, as a one-size-fits-all Universal Truth. A different model for a different situation, but the models need to agree with reality. Universal vs relative morality is just a self-inconsistent bullshit model of principles that gives leeway to certain groups to twist ethics to suit their agenda under the claims to Universality or Relative differences.