Spotlight (M). Director: Tom McCarthy. Starring: Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachael McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery. 129 minutes
This is one of the angriest films you will ever see.
In the Bible we hear about righteous anger, where God or humanity realises something is so wrong and sinful that 'holy anger' is the first and right response. At its best in the scriptures this anger leads to justice, making things right.
Spotlight is an occasion for holy, righteous anger and every adult Catholic should see it. Not because it is easy watching, but because it is necessary watching. The time to look away has gone.
The first meaning of this film's title refers to the team of award-winning investigative journalists at The Boston Globe. In the late 1990s they become aware of a number of Catholic priests who have been accused of child sexual abuse.
In the early days of their investigation they unearth evidence that the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has gone to extraordinary lengths to cover up the activities of these paedophile priests, and silence victims through payoffs, legal threats and personal intimidation.
The team starts out believing they are looking at isolated, criminal individuals: the 'rotten apple' theory. Within a year and with the help of Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci), the only lawyer in Boston prepared to represent victims against the Church, they discover there have been credible or accepted allegations against 90 priests, 6 per cent of the total number of clergy in the Archdiocese. Some of these were moved to various other dioceses in the USA where they raped and abused other children.
In 2011 Boston's Cardinal O'Malley made public the full list of offending clergy: 159.
The USA remains the most publicly religious western nation on earth. In 2014 70 per cent of the whole population said they were Christian. 51 per cent are Protestant while 24 per cent are Catholic. The USA remains the largest practising Christian developed nation in the world, where around 28-32 per cent go to church once a month or more.
This is background to the power of religion in the USA. Even after the despicable scandals of recent years, it can be hard for people who have never lived in Boston or Chicago or New York to appreciate the social and political power churches continue to wield, much of it used in support of very good outcomes in education, social services and healthcare. This film is about