'Spotlight' Praised by Vatican Newspaper After Oscar Win
‘Spotlight’ won the Academy Award for Best Picture on Sunday night, a decision met with approval the next day in ‘L’Osservatore Romano’ (Photo: Kerry Hayes/Open Road Films via AP)
Following its Academy Award win for Best Picture on Sunday, Spotlight is receiving praise from an unexpected place: Vatican City’s newspaper.
As the Associated Press reported, two articles published in L’Osservatore Romano following the Oscars ceremony expressed support for the movie, which focuses on the uncovering of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.
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An editorial written by Lucetta Scaraffia, a journalist and professor, followed up on comments that Spotlight producer Michael Sugar made during his acceptance speech in which he called on Pope Francis to “protect the children and restore the faith.”
“The fact that a call arose from the Oscar ceremony — that Pope Francis fight this scourge — should be seen as a positive sign: there is still trust in the institution, there is trust in a Pope who is continuing the cleaning begun by his predecessor, then still a cardinal,” Scaraffia wrote.
Catholic Online cites a second article, by L’Osservatore Romano movie reviewer Emilio Ranzato, who wrote that Spotlight “is not an anti-Catholic film because Catholicism in itself is not even mentioned,” and that the movie “has the courage to denounce cases which must be condemned without any hesitation.”
Last fall, Vatican Radio praised the film after it screened at the Venice Film Festival. And earlier this month, Spotlight was screened for a Vatican commission assembled by the Church to seek ways to better protect children from clerical sex abuse.
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The story of Spotlight continues to have real-world relevance. Walter Robinson, who led the team of reporters portrayed in Spotlight (he was played by Michael Keaton), told the Associated Press, “We’re at a moment now where bishops around the world are praising the film … signals that perhaps the Church will become more serious about dealing with a problem that still continues.”
Deadline reports that in Australia, shortly after Spotlight won its Oscar, Cardinal George Pell, the country’s most senior Catholic official and a close adviser to Pope Francis, provided evidence related to an investigation into the systemic cover-up of child abuse committed by priests in the town of Ballarat.
“The Church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those, but the Church in many places, certainly in Australia, has mucked things up, has let people down,” Pell admitted while speaking, via video link from Rome, to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, David Ridsdale, a victim of clerical abuse who stood outside the hotel where Pell’s testimony was given, said, “We represent hundreds and hundreds from Ballarat and thousands and thousand of victims across Australia … it’s not words we are looking for, it’s actions.”
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